I see who you are
by Warriorbride
Summary: Draco Malfoy is waiting for his real life to begin, the one that will begin when he leaves Hogwarts. As the year goes on he realizes what he really wants is to know who he is and why she affects him so. DracoOC. COMPLETE. Please R&R my first fan fic!


**Chapter One- Some wizarding families**

Draco Malfoy looked at the letter he had in his hands. His book list for his seventh year at Hogwarts Academy. In a way he wished he could stay home. Home had been much quieter for him since his father had gone into hiding, following his escape from Azkaban. His mother was rarely out of her rooms. She seemed to lose her desire to make Draco's life miserable when his father wasn't there to help. Draco had pretty much fended for himself since his second year at Hogwarts. His father had made it perfectly clear that he had disappointed him more with every passing year. It was a little easier when his grandmother was alive. She was strict and proud but she had shown Draco more love than he'd been shown since. The only time his parents noticed he was alive was when he was in trouble or when he was injured. Or when his father was going to one of his functions with the Ministry. He loved to parade Draco around-his good little pureblood son. -But once they were alone it was if Draco didn't exist. Not that Draco hadn't tried to please his father but it seemed impossible. He did seem pleased when Draco told him that he would be playing Quiddich but that had faded after his first match.

Draco shook his head suddenly as if the memories would fall out and be gone forever. He walked up the stairs to his mother's room and knocked on the door.

Bella Goyle, his mother's best friend and almost constant companion opened the door and looked at him with distaste. "What is it you want now?"

"Just to tell my mother I am going to Diagon Alley to get my school things." He clipped the words out but the door was already closing.

Twenty minutes later Draco was walking along the crowded street hoping that he wouldn't run into anyone he knew. He was glad that Bella hadn't brought her ridiculous son around. Draco put up with him at school because he did what Draco said, but other than that he was very little use. He rounded a corner and collided with a solid object. He couldn't stop himself from falling and cracking his head on the stone sidewalk.

He lay with his eyes closed to a minute hoping it hadn't happened and moreover that no one saw it.

"I'm so sorry." The woman's voice was unfamiliar and gentle. He felt a hand touch his forehead. His eyes shot open and she started a little. "Are you alright?"

Draco ignored the concern in the woman's eyes. "Yes I am. No thanks to you. Do you always come barreling around corners like that?"

The woman's look changed into something other than concern but Draco couldn't tell what before she stood up and stepped away from him. Draco stood and faced her. She was on a level with him and despite her curvy figure looked very strong. She faced him without fear, her brown eyes reflecting nothing of what she felt. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again, going back to regarding him steadily. She held his angry gaze until he began to feel nervous then she brushed by him and continued down the street.

Draco stared after her. He had expected her to get angry or even cry but the complete lack of response shook him more than either of the other situations would have. He willed her to turn her dark head around and look at him but she just turned into a store, disappearing from his view.

Draco went about his shopping and decided to eat at the Leaky Cauldron. His father would never let him eat there before. He could hear Lucius' voice "Draco only the worst of the wizards dine there. We can afford much better."

Draco took a seat with his back to the wall so he could survey the crowd coming in. He watched warily as Harry Potter and his little fan club walked in and took a table. They were engrossed in conversation and didn't notice him. He had no desire to do battle with them today. He remembered the last time he'd seem them and come up looking like a slug and what he'd done and said to deserve that. He closed his eyes pushing the memory away; he heard the door open again and opened his eyes.

That's when he saw her come in.

She walked into the room like she owned it. Her dark hair caught the light as she scanned the room; she noticed Draco and caught his eye. Draco felt strange when she stared at him like that, it was almost as if he was catching fire. He couldn't look away though. Her eyes were the color of chocolate but free of almost all emotion. Briefly he thought he saw something skitter across her face but she looked away before he could identify it. That was the second time she'd done that, the thought irritated him. He watched as she smiled at a middle-aged wizard, kissed his cheek and sat down.

Draco sat for a long while watching the woman and her companion talk, eat and laugh. Her laugh was much like she was robust and contagious, to his surprise he found himself smiling when she laughed. His plates were cleared away and his drink refilled several times before the couple got up and left. It was only then that Draco felt he could leave.

**Chapter Two-New term, new professor. **

Draco looked at the head table and took stock. As usual there was a New Defense again the Dark Arts teacher, everyone else looked pretty much the same. He ignored Dumbledore as he droned on and looked around the Great Hall, in a few moments a group of scared first years would be walking in. Crabbe and Goyle were anxiously awaiting food and Pansy Parkinson was smiling at him. God he wished he had stayed home. That and that he hadn't made the monumental mistake of kissing Pansy Parkinson in a fit of insanity last year. It had been his first kiss and hoped it was his last with her. He knew that everyone expected them to date and possibly marry, true pureblood women weren't easy to come by, but he just couldn't stand the though of kissing her or touching her or…

Something caught his attention, a movement off to the side of the head table. The door to the teachers quarters opened slightly but no one came through it. He wondered if a first year had gotten lost. Lord help him if he had, the teachers were very private about there quarters. Draco had wandered through the hallway a couple of years ago, just out of curiosity, but Flitwick had caught him and let him have it. Of course he had joined that ridiculous Inquisitorial Squad, another attempt to please his father, but it only made him more of a target. He glanced over at Potter and his friends who were watching the first years be lead to the sorting hat. Draco looked again at the door, it was still ajar, but no one was coming out. He kept his eye on the door throughout the sorting ceremony waiting for some one to come out. He was only vaguely aware that there seemed to be a few more Slythern's sorted than usual. Then the food appeared and the door to the left of the head table closed without a sound.

Draco and Pansy led the Slythern's down to their dungeon rooms. Pansy kept bumping him "on accident" and Draco was glad when he finally got to lead the boys to their side of the dormitory. He only had a little time to relax before he was out for his prefect duties. Draco listened to the boys talking around him; as usual they were talking about girls. Blaise was talking about one of the third years. Draco frowned; he had never found any of the girls here interesting in the least. He'd put up with Pansy's mooning over him but he never really cared about her. He knew what was said about him in the other houses. It wasn't that he didn't like girls, he just didn't like any of the girls he'd met so far. He shrugged on his robe and walked through the common room, feeling very alone.

Draco strode the deserted hallways. This was his favorite time of day, well night actually, he smiled. He'd always been a night person; somehow it made him feel more alive. He was glad he'd escaped the dungeons before Pansy could corner him.

His senses snapped to attention at the sound of someone singing softly. He couldn't tell where it was coming from. He prowled the hallway, anxious to find the culprit that disturbed the silence of his night. The words grew clearer but the voice was no louder than before. He paused near a little nook in the hall and sat, he could wait for the culprit to pass him. They would eventually as this hallway dead-ended into the teacher's quarters; besides he was suddenly very tired.

"_You don't remember me."_

"_But I remember you"_

"_I lie awake and try so hard _

_Not to think of you"_

He could hear the words clearly now. He shook his head for a moment and closed his eyes. Once again he'd thought of that day in Diagon Alley and the dark haired woman, He had hoped he would see her here among the new arrivals. After all her presence in Diagon Alley had proven that she belonged here. Draco was sure she was about his age, perhaps a little older. He had studied her during that lunch and decided he wasn't as old as he'd originally thought.

"_But who can decide what they dream"_

"_And dream I do"_

Draco leaned back against the wall. He'd been troubled by the fact that the man she was with had been a good deal older than her. They didn't look as if they could be related. She was so dark and he was fair. He felt himself relax.

"_I believe in you"_

"_I'll give up everything just to find you"_

Draco could feel himself falling into sleep, he tried to shake himself awake, he had to catch the person that was singing. It was his duty.

"_I have to be with you to live to breathe"_

"_You're taking over me."_

Professor McGonagall was doing her rounds the next morning when she found Draco Malfoy curled up on the low cushioned seat she herself had curled up on so many times to read, or hide. She had to move the corner of the blanket that he clutched around him to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"Mr. Malfoy." She spoke more sternly than she felt. He was a prat but he had something his father had always lacked a deeply hidden streak of insecurity and something that bordered on loneliness. "Mr. Malfoy." Draco opened his eyes and started. "I wasn't aware that you took your duties as prefect so seriously as to spend the night in this drafty hallway."

"Sorry." Draco was too confused to be his usual sarcastic self. He barely remembered falling asleep and he noticed the blanket as an after thought. "I.." he remembered the night before a little more clearly. "I heard someone singing and I thought I would sit here and wait for them to pass me but they never did. I must have fallen asleep." He looked irritated at his failure to catch his quarry.

Professor McGonagall frowned for a moment. "Do you always take a blanket with you on rounds?" She had heard her share of excuses for nighttime liaisons but this time it seemed that what was said was actually what happened.

"This isn't mine." Draco looked at it and sat up, bundling it in his hands. "Here." He extended it to her.

She shook her head. "I assure you it is not mine. Now return to your house. Classes begin in a few hours."

Draco showered and dressed in a daze. He glanced at the blanket, folded on the end of his bed and wondered what had happened. He wondered suddenly if he'd been put under some type of spell, but he hadn't heard anything, nothing but the singing. It was rare that he slept so soundly as to miss someone tucking a blanket around him. He had been dreaming vivid dreams last night though. They had come frequently in the past week, dreams of the dark haired woman, looking at him with that unreadable look. She had never spoken or smiled and when he reached out to touch her he found that she was mist vaporizing in his hands. He cursed softly under his breath- he was frustrated with himself. There was no reason for her to be haunting him this way, she wasn't even beautiful. He'd always imagined that only a beautiful woman could do this to a man.

'You're not half the man I'd hoped you'd be Draco' his father's voice echoed in his head as he walked into the great hall. He glanced at the groups of people sitting together talking, only this time they were talking about him and not Potter. The news that Lucius was a death eater not to mention one that had attacked Harry Potter and several other students had spread through the school like wildfire at the end of his fifth year. It troubled Draco that so much of how others saw him was because of who his father was. He wished he could start over somewhere new, someplace that no one knew him, somewhere where his was free of his father's shadow. Draco wondered somehow if he would ever be free of it. He took his normal seat between Crabbe and Goyle and tried to ignore Pansy as she smiled at him. He ate sparsely, suddenly not hungry. A movement from the head table caught his attention. He turned to see a familiar figure walking behind the table and knelt down between Professor Snape and the new DADA teacher. Draco watched in interest, as his godfather's entire body seemed to stiffen as the woman brushed his side. He expected Snape to say or even do something to the woman but he didn't. Draco turned his entire body to watch the dark haired woman as she spoke to the only professor at the table that he didn't know. She stood in one fluid movement and turned suddenly to look at him.

Draco felt as if his entire body was on fire but he couldn't look away. The sensation wasn't entirely unpleasant although still unfamiliar. Before Draco knew what was happening the woman was walking towards him, down the center aisle of the great hall. She didn't look away from him although everyone was watching her, watching him. She didn't pause as she walked past him and only her body broke their eye contact.

"Draco." Crabbe nudged him and Draco turned to look at him. "Do you know that girl?"

Draco tried to register what Crabbe was saying but couldn't. He looked at his plate without seeing what was on it. The woman was here. He looked up at the new DADA teacher with more curiosity than he'd shown when he was introduced. "What's the name of our new DADA teacher?"

Pansy answered him. She was none too happy about the strange way Draco was acting. "Professor Trahern." She leaned in to catch his attention. "I don't know who the girl is but I've heard that she's his fiancée. It's sick really, he's old enough to be her father."

Draco registered what she was saying without looking at her. He ate mechanically. He had double DADA today with Gryffindor, normally the fact that he would have to spend time with Potter, Weasley and the Mudblood would have put him out of temper. Today however he wanted to get a good look at his newest teacher.

The class silenced as soon as Professor Trahern walked in. He was an imposing man with blonde hair and eyes the shade of a winter sky. Draco looked around him and saw several of the girls in the class smile at one another. It had been that way when Professor Lockhart was here but something told Draco that Professor Trahern was not all looks and no brains.

"Good morning class." His voice was deep and all eyes turned to him. "I am Professor Sloan Trahern." He paced in front of the class, not uncomfortably but rather as if he needed to do something. "Before I set about instructing you this term I feel you have a right to know my qualifications. I understand you have had some good instructors in the past" he glanced at the girls in the front row who were looking worshipfully at him. "As well as some poor ones." He stopped and looked around at all the students. "I assure you I have a good deal of experience. I have achieved the Order of Merlin, second rank as well as being an Auror instructor. I fought in the first war against Voldemort." A fresion of whispering crossed the room. "I will have no ridiculous 'He who must not be named' here. He is a real threat and I insist that you treat him as one." He drew himself to his considerable height and looked at the class again. "Are there any questions you wish to ask me?"

Seamus raised his hand. "Did you kill anyone in the war?"

Pro. Trahern seemed to take a steadying breath. "Far more than I wish to remember." He looked to the back of the room and seemed to be remembering something. "But far more than I can ever forget." He sighed. "War is not noble, it is what happens when you have to defend your way of life." He paused and looked at Seamus again. "Aren't you going to ask me if I lost anyone in the war Mr. Finnigan?" Seamus shifted slightly in his chair. "I did." He turned from them and strode across towards the opposite wall. "I lost everyone I loved, save one." He turned and faced them again. "I will be preparing you to fight. But believe me when I say nothing can prepare you for war."  
The silence in the room stretched out for several minutes while the students took this in. Then Professor Trahern smiled thinly. "Let's open our books shall we?"

Draco opened his book but didn't read it. He was watching his teacher with something like respect. In that brief speech he'd learned more about how men act than he'd had his entire existence. His father always longed for war, never regretting the people that had been lost or those he'd killed.

Draco was somewhat relieved when he heard the Professor say to pack up their books and leave. He turned and saw a familiar figure turn out of the room into the hallway. He picked up speed, only a few seconds behind her but she was gone and the hallway was a throng of robes and familiar faces. Draco walked to his Ancient Runes class and decided what he needed was a plan.

Draco had a list of excuses ready should anyone ask him why he was hanging out around the DADA classroom. He sat in the window seat with his nose buried in a book he wasn't reading watching the hallway for any sign of the girl. He never needed any of his good excuses because no one ever looked for him there. Draco felt a strange sort of relief that no one sought him out-for any reason. Students and teachers alike fell silent when he walked past them. Even Snape was acting funny, and for his godfather that was saying a lot. Although he didn't know it everyone had noticed the change in Draco's demeanor. Some, Slytherin's mostly but a few Hufflepuff's, thought the change was due to the grief over the loss of his father. The other's Gryffindors and most of Ravenclaw thought it was due to embarrassment over his father's situation. In reality it was neither. Draco was trying very hard not to be noticed. After all the years of living in the shadow of his father and being the "Slytherin Prince" he just wanted to be left alone. Soon he would be out of Hogwarts and his real life could begin somewhere far away where no one knew him or his family. Then he could be who he truly was, if only he could figure it out.

**Chapter Three **

**The Dragon stands alone**

Draco sat outside the classroom without hearing or seeing any sign of the girl for what seemed like forever. On Wednesday afternoon, while everyone else was enjoying their free time outside, Draco finally got what he was waiting for.

"Dumbledore asked me if you'd been out wandering the halls at night." Professor Trahern's voice carried out the open classroom door and down the hallway. "You are being quiet aren't you?"

The woman's voice was clear as she sighed, "I am. I hope I am not getting you in trouble." Draco heard her pull out a bench and sit down. "I wish I could sleep but I just can't seem to." Draco felt as if his ears were going to fall off he was concentrating so hard on hearing them. "I'm not waking you am I?"

"No." The professor's voice grew louder and Draco knew he was in the hallway. He pulled his legs into the seat with him and held his breath. "None of the other teachers wake either." The voice turned away from the door but was still clear enough to hear. "I just want you to be careful Rosalind. I know that the castle is the safest place for you to be but…"

"I'll be fine Sloane." The woman's voice was soothing. "I rarely meet anyone on my wanderings but Mrs. Norris and Severus Snape." She laughed softly but not meanly. "I believe he might have problems sleeping too."

"There was a student that fell asleep in the hallway the first week of school." The professor began.

"That had nothing to do with me." She spoke quickly and Draco thought he would fall off the seat, they paused for a moment and he had to fight the urge to leave the seat and creep to the door to listen. "He was already asleep when I found him."

"Regardless, I want you to stay away from Snape." Professor Trahern spoke sternly. "You need to be more careful Rosalind. Snape already knows more about you than I would have liked."

She sighed defeatedly. "Sloane, I haven't spoken to anyone but you since I arrived. Except for a few good evenings to Snape. I am being careful. I wanted to thank you for asking the some of the teachers if I can listen in on their classes." Draco knew she was trying to change the subject, "Some of the students are really quite bright, there is this one young woman."

"Promise me you'll stay away from Snape." The professor's voice sounded almost sad. "I mean it Rosalind. He can't be trusted."

"I can handle Snape." She shot back. Then her voice changed and was soothing again. "But I promise I'll be careful Sloane. Don't worry."

"I can't help it." Again Draco heard the sadness in his voice. It was close now and he was sure the teacher was standing just around the bend in the wall Draco was hiding behind. "I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you."

Draco's entire body sagged as he heard the door shut cutting off all conversation. So it was true, Draco felt relieved and tired all at once. He picked up his books and walked to his room to sleep.

Draco had stayed out of the hallways after his rounds were over. He didn't want to meet up Rosalind. She had haunted his daydreams now, as they were the only dreams he was having. She was standing close to him with a little smile on her face. When he looked past her however he saw the shadow of a tall man, who looked ready to pounce if Draco made any kind of move towards her. Tonight he stood on the tower closest to the lake. The moon was rising and the reflection from the lake and the brightness of the moon made it seem like daybreak. A movement near the lake caught his eye. The moon seemed to concentrate on her figure as it made its way down to the lake. For a moment Draco wondered if she was going swimming, but she lay down in the grass and studied the stars. Draco was so fixated on watching her as she stargazed that the man that appeared next to her suddenly made him jump. It was his godfather, Severus Snape. The woman sat up and looked up at him. Draco desperately wished he could hear what they were saying.

Then his godfather turned on his heel with an abruptness that made Draco start and stalked towards the castle. The girl stood up and watched him go then she raised her face to look at Draco.

Draco felt all his breath leave him as she held his gaze. He wondered how long she'd known he was there, like a common spy, watching them. The moon reflected off her hair and made her eyes sparkle as she turned her entire body towards him. He couldn't look away, only stand pinned to the ground as if she was physically holding him. Thoughts raced through his head, had she told Snape he was there and if not, why not? Draco almost sagged when she looked away from him and began walking back up the hill towards the castle. The coolness of the night hit Draco like a weight and with the cold came the fatigue. He only lingered on the tower for a moment or two after she passed out of sight before returned to the dungeons to sleep.

Draco returned to the tower the next night in hopes of seeing her again but she didn't appear by the lake or at the tower. He wasn't the only one out prowling the castle that night. He'd almost run into Snape in the hallway and that would not have been a good thing. His godfather had been in a particularly foul mood that day in Potions, picking on students that normally escaped his notice. He'd even reprimanded Crabbe and Goyle who were too busy passing notes to pay attention. Draco had wisely acted as if there was no one else in the room but Snape when he'd looked at him sitting in the back of the room, expecting to catch him doing something he shouldn't. Snape's fowl mood continued for most of the week, as did Draco's prowling. He was usually the first one in and the last one out of his DADA classes. He had taken to sitting in the back row for all of his classes, he knew he was taking other people seats but no one seemed willing to challenge him for them. Still she never appeared. Draco had tried to befriend Professor Trahern, but he just couldn't seem to do it. Professor Trahern while respectful to each of his students didn't seem to care to be any more intimate with them.

Draco spent time in the library by himself almost every night. Crabbe and Goyle seemed loyal to him, but then again they were too stupid to be anything else. The more he distanced himself from his old 'friends' the more they began to turn on him. None of this mattered to Draco. The only thing he was really concentrating on was getting through with this year of school and going somewhere far away. He didn't even really care what Potter and his friends were up to. He stopped getting mail all together by the beginning of October. He'd received one letter from his father, which shocked him to no end, until he realized it was dictated through someone else and told Draco that his father expected him to be in Hogsmeade on Halloween. Draco had not replied and had no intention of going to Hogsmeade on Halloween or any other day. The residents of Hogsmeade were loyal to Dumbledore and looked on Draco as an enemy. He knew his father would not venture to Hogwarts, he was too afraid of Dumbledore. Much to Draco's surprise Dumbledore had sought him out on several occasions as he wandered the halls at night. Draco had never really spoken to Dumbledore before, he'd even been quite adamant against him before the Ministry of Magic fiasco, but he was surprised that speaking to Dumbledore gave him a good measure of peace. Even Snape looked surprised at the duo when he came upon them one evening in the main corridor.

"Severus." Dumbledore smiled slightly at the younger man. "Still not sleeping?"

"No." Snape tried to smile. "I trust everything is OK?" He looked at Draco questioningly.

"Fine Severus." Dumbledore answered before Draco could. "Mr. Malfoy and I were just discussing his career opportunities after he graduates." He motioned for them to continue. "Would you care to join us?"

Snape looked as if the last thing he wanted to do was join them but he did anyway. They walked the corridors towards the dungeon and Draco knew that Dumbledore had decided that it was time for him to retire.

"Well this is where you say goodnight." Dumbledore smiled at Draco. A genuine smile that made Draco smile back almost against his will. He hadn't spoken to his godfather about his changing opinions and he wasn't sure if Severus would report right back to his father that he had been willingly walking around with one of his archenemies. "Now that Professor Snape knows a little more about the avenues you wish to pursue I'm sure he will do all he can to help you."

"Thank you sir. Goodnight Professor Snape." Draco looked at his godfather unsure of what he would see.

Snape looked surprised but Draco couldn't be sure if it was pleasantly or not. "Good night Draco. Perhaps we could meet tomorrow afternoon during your free time."

"Of course." Draco spoke the password and walked into the dungeon. As he dressed for bed he wondered if he was the only one who'd changed his mind about his father and Dumbledore recently.

**Chapter Four-**

**Dancing at Midnight**

The nights had started to turn cold by the Halloween but Draco still did his rounds in just his cape. He'd always had a penchant for the winter. He enjoyed Christmas, far more than anyone really knew, but it was more than Christmas that made Draco fond of winter. The cold seemed to invigorate him, made all of his senses stand at attention at all times, not only that but he was less likely to find any Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws wandering the hallway when it was so cold. But Draco was Slytherin, born and raised, and the cold welcomed him like an old friend. His mother used to tease him when he was little that he blended so well with the snow that she couldn't tell where he ended and it began. That fact didn't bother Draco as it could have, he missed the times when his mother looked at him as little more than a nuisance. He looked at his reflection in the window and saw what he'd always seen; pale skin with deep set blue eyes and hair the color of white silk.

"_You build me up _

_To knock me down."_

The voice struck Draco like a blow and he whirled around. It seemed to be coming from the Great Hall. He ran there and this time he could hear music, pounding though his mind, it was so disorienting that it took him a minute to identify the words that were being sung along with it.

"_You chew me up"_

Draco opened the door to the Great Hall expecting to see Rosalind there, even though the voice that was singing was a man's. The Hall was empty and dark. He turned in the darkness trying to figure out where else she could be. He half ran through the halls listening intently.

"_And spit me out_

_Enjoy the taste _

_I leave in your mouth."_

Draco saw that the door to the new Divination classroom was not closed completely. He didn't open the door completely. Only enough to see her, the woman who'd haunted his dreams, day and night, dancing in the classroom that was made to look like a forest.

"_You look at me_

_I look at you_

_Neither of us know what to do."_

Draco tried to see where the male voice was coming from. She was singing but not loudly enough to be heard. She moved around the room in time with the music, seemingly unaware that he was watching her.

"_There may not _

_Be another way to your heart_

_So I guess I'd better find a new way in"_

Draco leaned in the room a little so he could watch her as she moved out of his line of vision. He still couldn't identify where the music was coming from.

"_I shiver when I hear your name_

_Think about you but it's not the same_

_I won't be satisfied 'til I'm under your skin."_

Draco was getting ready to move into the room and declare his presence when a movement caught his attention. His godfather was walking out of the shadows, he waved his wand in the general direction of the large tree that stood in the room and the music stopped. She turned and faced him, not alarmed, but looking a little annoyed at being disturbed.

"Having fun with your little Muggle play things I see." Severus' voice sounded caustic and dry after the vibrancy of the music.

She pushed hair out of her eyes and smiled thinly. "I try. I'm sorry if I woke you Severus."

"I wasn't sleeping, but I suspect you already knew that, didn't you Ms Weaver." It wasn't a question and the look in Snape's eye warned Draco that silence was best even if it didn't have the same effect on the woman it was aimed at.

"Is there something I can do for you Professor?" Rosalind looked around her, as if she'd just realized that they were alone. "I will turn down the music if you wish."

"Release me." He spoke clearly, cutting across her offer, and for the first time Rosalind seemed to realize she might possibly be in danger. She took a step back and opened her mouth to speak but Snape wouldn't let her. "Don't deny anything Ms. Weaver. I know very well who you are and what you've done to me." He moved with deceptive speed and seized her by the shoulders, pulling her close to him so they were almost nose to nose. "I am not sure why Dumbledore allowed someone like you to enter Hogwarts but I assure you that.."

The sound of hooves walking on grass drew everyone's attention to Fiernze walking into the room. Draco wondered how long he'd been watching. He took them in at a glance that was impossible to read. "Good evening Severus, Rosalind."

"Good evening Firenze." Professor Snape bit the words out.

"Am I interrupting something?" Firenze's blonde hair caught the moonlight as he looked at them. Snape released Rosalind and stepped away from her.

"No Firenze." Rosalind spoke and her voice sounded unsteady. She ignored the startled look that Snape gave her and tried to smile. "Professor Snape was just leaving."

"I think that would be best." Firenze walked over to stand next to Rosalind. He didn't touch her, but his presence seemed to give her a little strength.

"Very well." If looks could kill Snape's glare would have killed the both of them on the spot. "Good night Firenze. Goodnight Ms Weaver. I trust we'll continue this conversation later."

Draco barely got out of the way in time as Snape swept through the door into the hallway. He waited for a moment and then looked back through the door. Firenze was looking at Rosalind carefully.

"Did he harm you?" He asked, more carefully than Draco had heard anything spoken in his entire life.

She shook her head. "No." She looked at him. "Thank you Firenze. I hope I didn't wake you."

"Not at all." He smiled at her and backed away. "You may stay as long as you like. I do not think it wise to wander the hallways right now."

She looked around the classroom. "Sloane knows I'm here, he will come looking for me in the morning."

"Very well." Firenze began to walk in the shadow. "Remember in the dark the best sense is that of sound."

Rosalind watched him go without comment. Draco had stolen into the room and hidden in the darkness while she was looking at where Firenze had retreated. The music that had stopped, started again, but it was different- quieter, slower and relaxing. Rosalind didn't turn as she sunk to the ground. Draco listened in the darkness as she began to cry softly. For the first time in his life Draco had no idea what to do, his mother rarely cried and when she did she didn't want any comfort that Draco could give her. He had seen other women cry he'd even caused a few tears himself, and he wondered if the grief he'd given them was anything like the feeling that was washing over him as he sat in the darkness.

"_Lonestar, where are you out tonight?_

_This feeling I'm trying to fight_

_It's dark and I think that I would give anything_

_For you to shine down on me."_

He listened to the voice that was singing, her voice at once raspy and soothing. The music wove a spell of quiet and safety around the room as he sat watching this woman that haunted him cry.

"_How far you are I just don't know_

_The distance I'm willing to go_

_I pick up a stone that I cast to the sky_

_Hoping for some kind of sign."_

Draco sat until his legs felt stiff. He stood silently and walked over the Rosalind. Her breathing was steady and deep and he was sure she had fallen asleep. Draco saw her shiver in her sleep and without thought took of his cape and laid it over her. He smiled as she curled up, wrapping the cape around her like a cocoon. He took a step back and sat down again to watch her. He could study her now that she wasn't looking at him with those burning eyes. Her hair fell in random curls around her face and the collar of his cape, it was as dark as her eyes and looked silky. Her skin hadn't always been as clear as it was now but it looked smooth and soft. Her mouth was curved in a small smile and her lips while not full weren't thin either. She had little diamond studs in her ears, which caught Draco by surprise; she didn't seem like the type of woman that would care about earrings. Draco chuckled softly to himself, in reality he had no idea the type of woman she was, he had never even spoken to her. How was it that he felt that he knew her better than he knew himself? She shifted in her sleep and he jumped.

"I think you'd better return to your dormitory." A voice out of the shadow spoke, making Draco stand quickly, wand drawn. Firenze walked out of the shadow and looked at Draco with a new understanding. "You should not be out wandering the halls at night." He tossed his hair behind his shoulder and looked from Rosalind, sleeping peacefully on the floor to Draco, standing between the two of them. "She will be safe here until morning."

Draco put his wand away. He was not afraid of Firenze, and he knew that Firenze held no threat to Rosalind. He glanced at her and back at Firenze. "Thank you."

**Chapter Five**

**The Reluctant Prince**

With the news of the deatheater's escape from Azkaban on the night before Halloween all the old 'friends' that had been ignoring Draco began to collect around him. It was clear they wanted leadership but Draco was unwilling to provide it. He wanted nothing to do with anything related to his father or any of the crazy people that had tried to kill students at the Ministry of Magic that night. Potter's friends seemed to assemble around him as well and they made Draco their main objective. He dodged them as much as possible, after a lifetime of being compared to the "Boy who lived" he wanted nothing to do with him. Draco was careful to not attract attention. That however was impossible. People began to notice him again and he couldn't ever manage to get a moment to himself. He was even joined on his rounds at night with any and all attempts at escape proving futile. He wanted very much to talk to Dumbledore or even to his godfather, but Snape seemed to be avoiding him and was preoccupied even in class. As for Dumbledore he no longer prowled the halls at night but spent most of his time in his study or on the towers.

Trahern's class had become the most interesting one, not so much for the content but more for the fact that Trahern seemed unable to relax. He stalked around the classroom. To his dismay, Draco seemed to be on the receiving end of his edginess on more than one occasion. Trahern had begun watching Draco in class with a renewed interest and that very fact made Draco quite nervous. Everyone seemed to look to Draco for some kind of explanation or some kind of sign, but Draco tried to remain as impassive as possible. Draco looked every night for any sign of Rosalind but could see none. He wanted to ask Professor Trahern if she was well but he couldn't bring up the courage to do it. Only when he did his homework did he get any privacy, more of the students clustered in their common rooms than ventured into the library to study.

Draco looked around the library with pleasure; once again there was not a single student beside himself in it. He suspected Crabbe and Goyle would be along any minute but for now he was alone. He unrolled his parchment to look at the grade he'd received on the "unforgivable" curse paper. He smirked at the Outstanding on the paper, of course his knowledge of the curses would be outstanding, he'd seen them first hand. He began to roll up his parchment when something that was attached to the side began to peel away. He glanced at it as it fell on the floor. He was going to pick it up and throw it away assuming that Trahern had accidentally left something when he noticed the name at the top.

The Slytherin Prince.

He held it and looked at the inscription, he wasn't sure then if he should open it. He heard the library door open and realized he only had a short time before Crabbe and Goyle found him.

Thank you for the use of your cloak. I would very much like to return it to you. Please meet me on the bridge at eleven thirty this evening. Please do not bring your entourage.

The queen of the night

Draco felt his stomach lurch. He had never thought she would contact him. He stood quickly but not quickly enough, Granger, Potter and Weasley stood looking at him.

"Problem Potter?" He glanced quickly at the trio and then at the clock. It was almost ten, he wanted to get out of the library now before anyone started to look for him.

"The only problem I see here is you Malfoy." Weasley piped up.

Granger looked at Draco with suspicion. "Come on Ron, Harry. We can find another place to study." She had placed a hand on Weasley's arm and he was now apparently too distracted by that to argue with Draco.

"No need Granger." Draco stood, stuffing the note in his pocket. "I was just leaving. As if I would share the library with the likes of you." He swept past them and made it into the hall without anyone coming after him. Once in the hall he began to run lightly to the staircase. None of his 'friends' would look for him where he was going.

Draco settled himself on the grass inside the Divination classroom and looked up at the 'sky' he tried not to look at Firenze who although surprised by his guest did not seem put out by having one. Draco had never really realized how relaxing this classroom was, he'd heard other students talk about how strange Firenze was but Draco found him to be a rather soothing companion. Firenze seemed not to expect anything from Draco and for once in his life Draco was thankful for that.

They sat in a comfortable silence for thirty minutes, Draco leaning back on his elbows to look at the sky and Firenze caught up in reading what it said as well.

"Does she come here often?" Draco had been surprised that the words had come from him. He had been thinking on the subject for several minutes but normally had a good deal more control than that.

Firenze didn't even look at him. "I think you should ask her that question."

Draco frowned as he looked at the centaur, all blond hair and otherworldly. "I meant to ask are you her friend?'

"Again that would be a question for her." Firenze looked down at the boy. "I consider her to be an ally. I have not however, made my mind up about you."

Draco was surprised, he'd never really thought of himself as anyone's ally before. "Because of my father."

"But you are not your father." Firenze regarded him steadily. "Which is the trouble."

"You have no idea." Draco frowned again. "I am not allied with my father if that is what you were wondering." He looked at the stars again and then at his hands. "I am not allied with anyone."

Firenze turned to glance at the stars again. "Did your father not groom you to be his ally?"

"He did." Draco spoke softly, unsure of how to put his next statement. "But he went about it all wrong. Fear never creates allies."

"Only respect." Freinze smiled at him. "A noble idea but not much abided to in this time. Your father was said to be a brilliant wizard at one time. But like Voldemort his power seemed to corrupt him. Your mother on the other hand." Draco looked at him in surprise. "Yes I know them, both. They have ventured into what used to be my forest often in the past."

"My mother is weak." Draco stared at the sky as he spoke the words.

Firenze turned toward him again. "Everyone has their weakness Mr. Malfoy. You will have yours."

"I have far too many to count." Draco started at the sound of thunder outside. "I thought your ceiling was like the one in the Great Hall."

Firenze shook his head, sending sparks of light off his golden hair. "I obtain my knowledge from the stars, it would do me no good to have a sky that is covered with clouds. Your weaknesses are not as many as you imagine. You must remember what you measure yourself against."

Draco stood glancing at his watch. "I have to go. Thank you."

"You are always welcome." Firenze nodded at him. "My allies are always welcome here."

Draco didn't respond only walked quietly out the door. He made his way through the corridors with as much stealth as possible. It took him a great while to make it across the courtyard and to the entrance of the bridge. The wind was howling around him and the rain was coming down like fury. He was quite drenched by the time he'd gotten to the cover of the bridge. He looked along it, and saw a figure standing alone looking at the ravine below. For a moment he was afraid. What if it was his father lying in wait inside that cloak? He had never allowed the subject to enter his mind before but now it was all he could think of. It would be just like his father, to lure him out here with no witnesses, to make him sorry for not obeying him.

The figure on the bridge turned towards him then and the hood of the cloak was swept back. The dark hair blew out in the wind as she looked at him. She began walking towards him. Draco seemed to be moving closer to her without being aware that he was moving. She stopped as he came closer and waited for him. She smiled as he stopped in front of her and Draco felt his stomach drop to his feet.

"I got your note." Draco heard the words without believing something so stupid could come out of his mouth. He recovered quickly. "Firenze told you the cloak was mine."

She took the cloak off and to his surprise wrapped it around him. "No." She fastened it and then touched the Slytherin patch on his chest. He felt as if he was going to burst into flames. "Firenze told me nothing." She hitched the cloak she had on under his around her. "I don't know if you've noticed but he's not exactly a fountain of knowledge." She looked around him. "I did not think you would be able to escape your loyal followers."

Draco was surprised at the ugly snort that came out of his mouth. "Loyal as long as my father is free." He looked at her and realized how soft her eyes could be when they were setting you on fire. "I'm Draco Mal."

She interrupted him. "I know who you are. I have known about you for some time." She motioned for him to walk beside her. The wind blew in some rain but it didn't faze her. "I didn't know who you were the day you ran into me at Diagon Alley, but it didn't take me long to figure it out." She glanced at him as he walked silently beside her. "You look very much like your father."

"That's were the similarities end." Draco turned and looked at her. "My father is a crazy, power hungry man. I don't intend to be like him in any way."

She paused and looked at him. "I'm glad." She continued to walk and he fell into step with her. "From what I understand this is a new development."

He felt a blush rush up his face, who could she have been talking to? "True. There are good reasons for it." He knew he sounded defensive but he wasn't sure what to do about it.

"I know." She almost whispered and he looked at her. She looked at him and then at the rain. "I read your paper, the one I left the note on." She stopped walking. "Only someone who's experienced those curses could know about them the way you do." She looked at him and her eyes looked so sad that Draco felt sadness flow over him. He almost jumped as she touched his face, so lightly that he wondered if it was even happening. He felt a little light-headed as she pulled the hood up around his face. "I think we should be getting inside." She turned away from him and began to walk back towards the castle.

Draco watched her walk away and fought the urge to grab her and make her stay with him on this bridge, to make her caress his face again, instead he walked quickly to catch up to her. She didn't glance at him as he fell into step beside her, when they reached the courtyard she turned to him.

"I'm sure we will see each other again Draco Malfoy." She smiled at him under the cover of her hood; he was surprised he could hear her over the sound of the wind and the rain. "You must get indoors. It's not safe for you out here. Goodnight."

Draco couldn't believe that he was being dismissed so easily. He looked at her and she nodded at him and turned to walk out to the bridge again. "Let me go with you."

"It is not safe." A voice boomed out behind him. He whirled around to see Professor Trahern and Dumbledore standing just inside the walkway to the castle. It was Trahern that spoke and he motioned for Draco to move in. Draco stepped inside the castle and watched as Trahern ran out into the rain, which was now coming down so hard he could see nothing else.

Dumbledore looked at him and smiled. "You should be getting back to the dungeons Mr. Malfoy." Draco began to protest. "Ms. Weaver will be fine. Sloane will be sure she doesn't get hurt."

"Hurt." Draco felt his body go cold. "By whom? Was there someone out there?"

Dumbledore held up his hand to silence the boy. Snape materialized at Draco's side. "Severus will you please take your godson in hand and return him to his rooms. I have some business to take care of."

Severus clapped a hand onto Draco and not entirely to Draco's surprise he began to get very tired. He tried to fight the spell off; he couldn't leave her out there to face whatever was here for him. It was the last conscious though he had.

**Chapter Six**

**The deaths on All Hallows Eve**

Draco walked into the Great Hall the following Monday. He'd slept all of Saturday and didn't leave his room on Sunday. No one bothered him, he heard Severus talking to the students outside the door, telling them to leave him alone. He felt most eyes turn to him as he walked into the room and conversation came to a lurching stop only to start up again quieter. He didn't take his seat at the center of the table but sat at the end closest to the door. He scanned the room and everyone seemed to be looking at him. He scanned the head table and saw Severus Snape and Dumbledore but no Professor Trahern, he glanced at a first year that was staring at him and leaned over.

"What happened. Where's Professor Trahern?" He asked the boy who looked as if he was going to faint from fright.

Dumbledore stood. "Silence." The entire hall went quiet and looked at him. "As I'm sure you all heard there was an attack on the school on Friday night. That is why you've all be confined to your dormitories this weekend." He allowed the acknowledgment of what he'd said to sweep through the room in whispers. "Professor Trahern was hurt in the attack but will recover. He is at St. Mungo's as we speak and will return by the end of the week. The deatheaters that attacked the school were not so lucky however none of them survived. The reason for my requesting your assembly here was to notify you that in agreement with the governors I have decided that no student is allowed outside the school after dark for any reason. The gates will be secured at dusk and believe me when I say that you do not want to be locked outside." He paused for a moment. "This attack was expected and Professor Trahern was prepared." Draco felt Dumbledore's eyes on him and looked up. "There was no one else injured from this school in the attack." Dumbledore sat and food appeared on the table for everyone.

Draco sat and looked at the food on his plate. He didn't notice when the first year he'd spoke to got up and moved down the table closer to the other students. He didn't notice that everyone was looking at him and paid no attention to the whispers about him as he stood without eating and walked out of the room.

Draco walked without realizing where he was going and found himself in the Divination room. Firenze didn't eat with the other teachers and was enjoying his meal when Draco burst in.

"Is she alright?" Draco didn't bother with niceties they didn't come easily to him in the first place.

Firenze looked at him without anger. "She is fine. She was unharmed."

Draco felt his knees give way and he sank onto the grass. "Why did she send me away? It was me they were here for."

"For you and Mr. Potter." Firenze spoke gently. "Your father was not among them."

Draco hadn't even thought about the prospect of losing his father. "He always sends others to do his dirty work." He looked up at Firenze. "She knew they were there and that's why she hurried me inside, so she could face them alone." He looked down at the grass and pulled out a handful. "She has no confidence in me."

"That's not the case." Firenze began.

"It's alright Firenze." Rosalind walked out of the shadow and looked at Draco. "Good morning Draco."

He stood in one fluid motion and walked towards her. "Good morning." Draco felt anger sweep over him. "How is it possible that you can stand there as if nothing happened?"

"It's over now." She didn't back away from him, although others might, considering the black look he was giving her. "Sloane will be fine. The deatheaters are not going to be returning any time soon."

Draco felt more frustration than he'd ever felt in his entire life. "Do you think I give a damn about Sloane Trahern?" He grabbed her arms and pulled her to him, close enough that he could see the little pools of gold that flecked her dark brown eyes. "You could have been killed."

The heat that surged through Draco when he touched her was unbelievable. He could hardly catch his breath. He held her as long as he could and then released her with a stagger. He wondered if his hands would bear scorch marks the next day but he couldn't look down at them, he was still caught in her eyes.

"I was in no danger." She spoke softly as she watched him regain his composure. "You're mistaken if you think I have no confidence in you." She paused. "I have more confidence in you than you do in yourself, but I see no need to risk you needlessly."

"I should have been the one to make that choice." Draco bit the words out although they held no real venom. He wasn't as angry as he had been.

"Perhaps you should have." She turned away from him and began walking around the room, not nervously but as if she was restless, it reminded Draco of Professor Trahern. "But I couldn't allow you to risk yourself for me."

Draco felt as if it was all clear to him now. "But Professor Trahern. It was ok for him to risk himself."

"Sloane is his own man." Rosalind glanced at him, quizzically. "I can no more control him than I can control Dumbledore or Snape."

Draco's mind was working a little better now. "But you can control me." He watched her as she walked back towards him. "You would be the first." He hesitated a moment, that wasn't entirely true, but he didn't want to think about that right now.

"I will never use fear to control you Draco." She walked towards him and stopped a few feet away. It streaked through Draco's mind that she was afraid to come to close to him. "You can't understand."

He walked towards her, wanting to make her uncomfortable, seeing if he could push her buttons. "Especially if you fail to explain it to me." He didn't touch her but got as close to her as he could bear, the heat radiating off of her was incredible. "It seems to me that you know a good deal about me and I know almost nothing about you." She tried to walk away but he moved in her way. "Why is that?"

"Because it is not my place to explain the past to you Draco." She looked up at him and for the first time he read anger in her face, but it didn't seem directed at him. "That was your mother's duty and she neglected it."

Draco had to fight the urge to touch her. "What does my mother have to do with all of this?"

"Mr. Malfoy." Snape's voice cut across the room and Draco found himself between Snape and Rosalind. "Are you planning on attending your classes today?"

Draco glanced back at Rosalind. "Professor Snape. Can I have a moment?"

Rosalind stepped to his side and looked at him. "I think it's best if you go now."

His head almost snapped as he turned to face her. "You're right. Apparently I still have much more to learn." He looked back at Snape who was also watching Rosalind warily. He began walking towards him and was startled by a movement out of the corner of his eye, he'd completely forgotten about Firenze. The centaur had been present the entire time they were talking and had said and done nothing, even when Draco grabbed her. Firenze nodded at Draco as he walked out of the room and Draco heard him close the door.

Draco thought of the incident in the Divination classroom as he walked his rounds that night. He had made it out of the dungeons without Crabbe, Goyle or any one else to bother him. He wanted to think on the subject alone. He went over the conversation in his head. 'I will never control you by fear Draco' he could still hear the words as if she was standing next to him. He thought of his last encounter with his father, the Easter holidays before the Ministry debacle, his father had called him into his study, 'Today is a grand day for you Draco. Today you will be receiving the dark Mark. His lordship has allowed you to receive your mark early." His father looked more delighted than he had ever seen him look. Draco had looked at his mother then and still remembered her blank stare. The door had opened then and a tall figure had walked in.

When Draco faced him he felt as if he'd been physically hit. The man radiated power, he was tall, with dark hair and eyes and a sort of hollow look to his face. He looked at Draco and smiled. The smile held no warmth and neither did his eyes as Draco began to back away from him. So this was Lord Voldemort, this was who his father worshipped all these years, this was the man that compelled his father to kill, the thought raced through Draco's mind unbidden and for the first time he felt truly afraid. Draco had always feared his father a little, as one would fear someone who was slightly unhinged, but now his fear was like a live thing wrapping itself around his mind. He watched as his father kissed the hand Lord Voldemort held out to him and then turned to look at Draco.

'Come here boy." His father had bellowed and Draco couldn't help but notice that his mother winced.

Draco wished someone would help him, but there was no one here, no Crabbe or Goyle to protect him and he didn't think he could protect himself. "No." He jumped when the word came out of his mouth.

His father's face began to change then, from the polite disdain it always wore to pure rage. He stalked towards Draco and Draco was too slow to move. His father grabbed him by his hair and dragged him across the room towards the Dark Lord. "This is the sole reason you were born." His father threw Draco at Lord Voldemort and laughed as he hit the floor near the Dark Lord's feet. His father knelt on the floor and held his sons arm out. Draco watched helplessly as his father pulled up his sleeve and presented his forearm to the Dark Lord. Draco closed his eyes then waiting for the burning, but it never happened, he'd felt pressure on his forearm but no burning of skin. He opened his eyes to see his forearm clear of all marks.

His father roared in rage "I don't know what kind of spell Dumbledore has put on you."

"There's no spell." Draco spoke blankly, unable to believe what had just happened. He looked at Lord Voldemort, who was looking at his forearm like it was made of glass. Draco was so focused on the Dark Lord that he wasn't prepared for the searing pain that ripped through him. He fell on the ground barely able to breathe. He couldn't hear anything but his own screaming. It seemed an eternity before the Dark Lord put a hand up and the pain stopped. It had taken Draco a moment to realize that the Dark Lord wasn't doing a spell on him, he looked up and saw Lucius standing over him wand drawn.

Draco made no move to stop the Dark Lord from taking his forearm again and pressing his ring on his exposed skin. Again nothing happened but in his head Draco could hear screaming. He looked at the Dark Lord again unsure of what to do next. His father was coiling himself up for another attack, when Voldemort raised his hand again.

"Enough." The Dark Lord's voice was booming in the now quiet room. "It is as I thought." He dropped Draco's arm and Draco slumped to the floor. "Remove him from my sight."

Draco woke up the next morning aching from every possible point on his body. He didn't have to venture out to know that the Dark Lord and his father were both gone, the house seemed to breath a sigh of relief. He was going back to Hogwarts that day.

Shaking his head Draco willed the memories away. Again he pulled up his sleeve and looked at his unmarked arm. He was still looking at it when Snape and Dumbledore rounded the corner.

**Chapter Seven**

**Illuminations and Lullabies.**

Draco sat in Dumbledore's office with Professor Snape and the Headmaster looking at him quizzically. He swallowed a mouthful of tea from the cup that Dumbledore had presented him with and rephrased the question.

"Lord Voldemort tried to burn the Dark Mark onto my arm over Easter of this year." Draco again exposed his arm to them. "He didn't seem surprised when it didn't take." He looked at Dumbledore, ignoring the horrified expression on his godfather's face, so there were a few things his father didn't share with Snape. "Can you explain why?"

Dumbledore was regarding him steadily. He glanced at Snape. "Severus would you like to do the honors?"

"If you wish Headmaster." Snape regained control of his face as he looked at his godson. He would kill Lucius if he ever laid eyes on him again. "Draco, your father has been grooming you since birth to be Lord Voldemort's right hand." He sat in the chair next to Dumbledore's desk. "What your father wasn't aware of was that several years before they met your mother took a spell of protection at the request of her cousin, Sirius Black. The woman who concocted this spell was what we like to call an Earth Witch or a Seer" He paused for a moment and looked at Draco. "The spell that she placed on your mother was so strong that it would protect her and all her offspring." He glanced at Draco all too aware of his own Dark Mark burning almost constantly now under his clothes. "That is why the Dark Lord could not mark you as his, because your mother had already marked you as hers."

Draco thought about what he'd said to Firenze when he'd hidden in his room that night. 'My mother is weak'. He felt a lump rising up in his throat, his mother had protected him, he wondered if she knew what he was protecting him against. "This seer. What happened to her?"

"She was murdered by your father during the first war." Snape swallowed hard.

Dumbledore picked up where Snape left off. "She was a very powerful woman Draco. She was not afraid of the Dark Lord." He smiled at Draco's look of surprise. "She had her own reasons."

"Why did no one tell of this before?" Draco's voice sounded distant even to him.

Dumbledore nodded at Snape and the man left the room. "I was unsure of what path you would choose. The Dark Lord could have marked you if that had been your true wish." He stood and walked to the boy, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't your fear that enacted to protection spell it was your choice at that crucial moment."

"But why didn't the spell protect me from my father?" Draco felt himself began to relax and knew that Dumbledore was putting another spell on him, but he wanted to know this one thing before he fell asleep.

Dumbledore's voice was becoming more distant but was still clear. "Despite it all you love your father. The protection spell cannot protect you against one that you love."

Draco woke sometime during the night in his room aware that someone was there. He opened his eyes and saw Rosalind, leaning against one of the posters of his bed. She smiled slightly when she saw his eyes open. "I was worried that Professor Dumbledore's spell was going to be too strong." She stood "I wanted to be sure you were ok. They told me you had a rough evening." Draco couldn't answer, he felt as if his brain was in a fog. "Well I'll let you go back to sleep."

Draco's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist before she could move away. "Don't." She looked at him. "Don't go." He dropped her hand then, unable to bear the heat that coursed into him through her.

She sat on his bed and smiled down at him. It was a warm, intimate smile and it made Draco feel as if he was levitating just above his sheets. "I'll stay till you're asleep." She touched his face, softly, like one would caress a fussy child. Draco was too lost in the contact to care.

"_Come away with me in the night_

_Come away with me _

_And I will write you a song."_

Draco opened an eye at looked at her. She was smiling as she sang gazing down at him in a way that made Draco feel safer than he had since he was young.

"_Come away with me on a bus_

_Come away where they can't tempt us _

_With their lies._

_I want to walk with you _

_On a cloudy day_

_In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high_

_So won't you try to come"_

Draco grabbed her hand from his face and tucked it against him, near his heart, where he felt it belonged. He was relieved when she didn't pull it away or stop singing. Her voice just got a little softer.

"_Come away with me and we'll kiss_

_On a mountaintop_

_Come away with me_

_And I'll never stop loving you."  
_Draco felt himself smile but couldn't open his eyes. Her voice fell another octave as she continued.

"_And I want to wake up with the rain_

_Falling on a tin roof_

_While I'm safe there in your arms_

_So all I ask is for you_

_To come away with me in the night_

_Come away with me."_

Draco dreamed of her again that night. This time she was standing with her arms around him, as if in protection, and she was smiling.

Draco woke the next morning and was surprised at the sense of loss that overwhelmed him as he realized the room was empty. He didn't feel her remove her hand or get off of his bed; he felt a brief, irrational anger towards Dumbledore. If he hadn't been under the influence of the sleeping spell he could have…Draco looked at himself in the mirror next to his bed, he could have what, done nothing; she was in love with another. He knew now that Sloane Trahern was in love with her, only someone in love could risk his life for someone else. What was worse was that she seemed to expect it, accept it as her due, the facts all pointed to a conclusion that Draco didn't want to face. Rosalind could never love him.

The next few weeks Draco threw himself into his studies. He was back to concentrating on getting out of Hogwarts and into the real world. He spent his evenings in the library and his nights wandering the hallways, telling himself that he wasn't trying to run into Rosalind. Professor Trahern had returned looking worse for the wear and they found themselves doing more practical forms of defensive magic. Draco had learned many of the spells at home and often his thoughts wandered in class. He watched as the other students grasped the concept of counter spells. Neville Longbottom was particularly good at them and Draco knew why. His father had told him with relish about the insanity of the Longbottoms as well as the foiled attack on their son. Neville's grandmother had been more powerful than the Lestrange's had thought and Neville, at least for the time being was safe.

Draco felt someone staring at him and turned to see Sloane Trahern watching him. He'd caught him staring at him numerous times in the past weeks. Draco felt himself bristling against the observation, he didn't feel as he had a first, like Trahern was sizing him up as a rival, now it was more as if he was watching him like one would watch a snake behind glass. Draco stared back and Trahern didn't look away this time, they stared at each other-Draco in open challenge and Trahern with a sort of finality that Draco couldn't understand.

**Chapter Eight**

**A Test of Faith**

The teachers noticed the change in the atmosphere at Hogwarts with ongoing concern. The student's fear was changing slowly into anger and the only one that seemed to be oblivious to it was the one person it was all directed at, Draco Malfoy. Snape had not spoken to his godson since the night in Dumbledore's office and Draco seemed to be avoiding him, but he knew Draco well enough to know that the rumblings of Draco's plotting against the school were insane. He also knew that Draco's air of unaffected disinterest was a façade, one he'd practiced since birth, and one that most people mistook for arrogance. But Snape knew that there was something at Hogwarts that had affected Draco deeply and as he followed him around on his night rambles he knew what it was. He had gone to Dumbledore after one strangely long night of shadowing his godson throughout the entire castle.

"Severus." Albus Dumbledore nodded at him with a small smile as he settled in the chair behind his desk. "You are concerned about Draco."

Severus frowned at the man; it really was unnerving the way he could read his mind. "Yes. He has removed himself from all of his friends and for the greater part from his house. Not to mention the hours that he keeps, wandering around the castle all night." Severus felt himself losing his temper, it galled him sometimes that someone like Lucius could be fortunate enough to have a son, while he, Severus had to settle with watching over Draco with more concern than his father could ever show. "The fact that he's not failing all his classes constantly amazes me."

"But he is not." Albus smiled at Severus, thinking of how truly unfair the world was.

Severus paused for a moment. "It's all because of that woman. Rosalind Weaver." He spoke the name like it was distasteful to pronounce.

"We all knew this time would come Severus." Albus took a drink of the tea that was always sitting on his desk. "He is not a boy anymore, he is almost a man, with that come decisions." He looked at Severus over his teacup. "You had to make your decisions Severus when you fell in love."

Severus looked for a moment like he'd been bitten, but he recovered quickly. "All of which I wish I could do over again." He looked at Dumbledore with an expression that could not mask the raw emotion that ran through Severus when he spoke of Sophia.

"You must forgive yourself Severus." Dumbledore waved his hand and a cup of tea appeared in front of Snape.

Snape took it thankfully and drank greedily, letting the steaming hot tea burn his mouth and throat, almost welcoming the pain that accompanied it. "There are some things that can never be forgiven Headmaster."

"Particularly when the one you want to forgive you is gone." Dumbledore felt a surge of white-hot anger towards Lord Voldemort. He could never understand why someone so brilliant would want to use his powers for evil.

Severus stood then and nodded at Dumbledore. "I just wanted you to be aware of the situation with Draco, Headmaster."

"I am aware, Severus." Dumbledore nodded back at him and watched him walk out of the room.

Tensions began the boiling over process several days later, when Draco Malfoy was following a group of second year girls and was too caught up in his own thoughts to notice that they'd stopped. He ran full tilt into them, knocking girls and books all over the floor. He barely had time to register what had happened when someone tackled him from behind. They fell to the floor with a thud and at least one punch connected with Draco's jaw before he had time to respond with a punch of his own. He felt his knuckles crack open and begin to bleed. Seamus Finnegan's nose was beginning to bleed when Weasley and Thomas pulled him off Malfoy. As Draco stood he found himself looking down the wands of most of Gryffindor house. His ears rang from his head hitting the hallway and his jaw ached from Seamus' punch.

"What is going on here?" A voice, both deep and loud, cracked over the proceeding. Everyone glanced as one and saw Sloane Trahern looking at the students with a disapproving look.

Draco looked around him and decided since he was outnumbered his best out would be a lie. "Nothing Professor. I wasn't watching where I was going and ran down Seamus." He looked at Seamus who had his head tipped back and was clutching the bridge of his nose. "It was an accident."

Professor Trahern didn't look completely convinced but decided to let it pass. "Well see that it doesn't happen again." He glanced at the bunch. "Get moving to your classes then." He stood until the group dissipated and then with a parting look at Draco turned and walked the other direction.

Draco turned and began to walk to the closest bathroom when he saw a sight that made his blood turn to ice. Harry Potter was standing in a corner talking in hushed tones with the woman Draco had been trying to forget. Neither saw him, although Draco felt like he'd been set alight with rage. He watched in silence as they finished their conversation and stepped out of the way just in time to hide as Potter walked past him. Draco watched him as he passed; thinking he'd never wanted to hurt someone so badly in his entire life. He turned and saw that Rosalind was walking down the other hallway. He fought the urge to chase her down and shake her until he told her just what she thought she was doing with talking so intimately with Harry Potter in a corner of the hallway. He had Potions with Potter this period and decided that his knuckles needed the attention more than his Potions did. He sat in silence as Madam Pomphrey applied a stinging liquid; the pain seemed to serve as a catalyst for his feeling of betrayal. He past the rest of the day in a blur, unable to concentrate on anything except how to make Potter pay for everything he'd done. He sat like a zombie through dinner, ignoring all conversation and trying his hardest not to even look at Potter. Every time he did his fingers itched to wrap around his neck and….

"Mr. Malfoy." Professor Trahern was looking down at him with an unreadable look. "Could you please come to my classroom after dinner? I have a few matters I would like to discuss with you."

Draco was too confused to lie his way out of it. "Yes sir. I can go now, I'm finished."

"I have a few things to take care of first." Trahern now looked a little confused. "In about twenty minutes then? I will write you a pass so you may be out of your dormitory."

Draco felt distinctly uneasy. "I don't need one. I'm a prefect." He pointed half heartedly at his badge.

"Very well." Trahern walked out of the Great Hall and Draco felt someone staring at him. He looked up to see Harry Potter watching him. He didn't hold his eye for long and Draco soon found himself looking at the top of his head.

Malfoy found himself in Trahern's office fifteen minutes later and the Professor was no where to be seen. Draco wandered around taking in the office, trying to get a glimpse of the man that showed so little of himself. But Draco found little here either, just books and journals; he was just beginning to open one of the journals when he heard a footstep outside the door. He quickly shifted his attention to a nearby book and looked blandly at the professor as he walked in.

"Sorry, one of my errands took longer than expected." Trahern made a quick survey of everything to see if anything had been moved. Draco wasn't worried. He had learned to be very careful. "Please sit." Trahern motioned to a chair and settled himself of the edge of his desk. "I wanted to ask you about this afternoon." He watched Draco for a reaction but got none. "I've spoken to a few people who saw what happened and they all tell me the same thing. You ran into a group of girls and then Seamus attacked you." He paused waiting for Draco to respond but he didn't. "Are you standing by your story?" Again nothing, "Did you run into the girls on purpose?"

Draco looked at him and wondered why he hadn't seen it before. Trahern was just as much of a pawn in this as he was; Rosalind had woven whatever magic she had around them in the quest for her ultimate goal, Potter. A voice screamed the name inside his head and he closed his eyes for a moment, willing it away. "Sir I ran into Seamus. I wasn't paying attention. I don't know why people would tell you anything else." He stood. "May I go sir? I have quite a lot of homework." Trahern didn't saw anything just waved him away.

When Draco walked into the hall he listened carefully for any noise. He knew they wouldn't be too far. He was glad they had kept the restrictions on the dormitories, only prefects could be out wandering the halls right now. He walked as quietly as he could through the halls, keeping close to the shadows as the moon shone through the windows.

"Don't be afraid Harry." Draco heard the voice whisper as he passed one of the empty classrooms. He stopped outside. He heard Potter mumble something and then a sharp intake of breath. Something seemed to fall onto the stone floor and he heard Rosalind speaking softly, he leaned in the door to try to hear what she was saying. He could see only Potter's feet and calves. He could hear breathing becoming faster and more ragged. Draco felt his pulse quicken as well, he should have known that this woman was nothing more than a common whore. His father had once told Draco once that he would never be able to fall in love, told him that he needed to accept women for what they were, and most were nothing more than something that must be borne with. In his heart, Draco never really believed that, but leaning in the dark listening, as Potter's breathing became harsher, he began to.

"Harry." Rosalind's voice broke the spell that had been working its way into Draco's heart. He realized that Potter's breathing was beginning to steady. "Harry are you alright?"

Harry's voice sounded strange. "Fine. Just give me a second."

Draco-never one to miss out on an advantage walked into the room. Potter was on the floor and Rosalind was sitting against the wall next to him. "Am I interrupting something?"

Harry sprung up but swayed a little on his feet. "Malfoy. What are you doing here?"

"Sorry," Malfoy spoke much more calmly than he felt. "Professor Trahern couldn't keep me detained longer." He looked at Rosalind who was watching him carefully. 'She doesn't look like someone who was just' Draco squashed the thought as it ran through his head.

"What are you talking about?" Potter looked at him and began to regain a little of his strength.

Malfoy smiled wickedly. "Well if that's how we're going to play it." He walked around Potter, continuing his conversation. "So Potter, how was it?"

"What?" Potter looked shocked and glanced at Rosalind.

Malfoy turned towards her, surprised momentarily to see her on her feet but still leaning against the wall. "Quiet aren't we pet?" He began to walk toward her and she straightened up slightly, still watching him. It sent a wave of irritation through Draco that he couldn't read a thing in her eyes. "Wanted to be the first to break in the great Harry Potter." He glanced back at Harry with a horrible smile. "Well I guess someone had to."

"Malfoy." Potter had regained all his strength by now and his mind was finally catching up to Draco's line of thought. "Malfoy stop."

Malfoy laughed and the sound hurt his throat. "What's the matter Potter? Don't kiss and tell?" The words were barely out of his mouth when something inside Malfoy snapped and he flung himself on Potter. Harry may have been ready for a curse but he wasn't ready for the physical attack and they both reeled against a table, knocking it over. Malfoy had the advantage and had landed several solid punches when he felt strong arms trying to pull him off. He glanced back and saw Rosalind out of the corner of his eye, holding one of his arms firmly in her hands. She moved swiftly even on her knees and before Draco could shake her off she had pushed him off of Harry.

It didn't take Draco long to get onto his feet again. He faced Rosalind, who had placed herself between Harry and Draco. She frowned slightly when she heard Harry groan as he got to his feet. "Alright there Harry?"

"Yes." Harry looked at her and then at Draco.

She didn't take her eyes off Draco as she spoke. "I think you should leave now Harry."

"Are you sure?" Harry knew he was bleeding all over his shirt from one of the few good punches that had been landed on his cheek.

Rosalind's eyes held Draco more effectively than steel bars, fastening him to the spot. Draco wasn't sure if the heat was from his own anger or from her. "Quite sure. Go to Madam Pomfrey and get those cuts looked at."

Draco didn't watch Harry leave the room, although he wanted to.

"Are you quite pleased with yourself Draco?" Rosalind spoke and Draco felt it like a knife.

He gathered his dignity and anger around him like armor. "Are you?" He was relieved when she turned away from him. "Does Professor Trahern know?"

"Sloane knows everything I do." She spoke quickly and turned to face him. "Do you know?"

Draco was angry that he couldn't think as quickly on his feet when she was looking at him like that. "I know very well what went on here tonight."

"Really." She strode towards him. "Are you sure?" She seemed pleased when he began to back away from her.

Draco didn't want to back away but his legs seemed have more sense than he did. Besides the quick flicker of pleasure he thought he'd seen he couldn't tell what she was going to do. He felt his back against the stone of the opposite wall. "Let me show you."

Without warning she placed her hands on both sides of his head, over his ears. Draco didn't know when he'd closed his eyes but he could no longer see Rosalind standing in front of him but his father, frowning down at him. Draco couldn't hear anything but he remembered what his father had said to him. Then he could see his grandmother lying on her deathbed and he could hear crying and he knew it was he. Then it flashed to his father standing over him with his wand drawn and he could hear his own screaming. Then to him lying in his bed with Rosalind stroking his face and her voice singing softly to him. Then him standing in front of his father, he wasn't sure where, but he felt no fear and he thought he should have. Then Rosalind's face came back into view and he felt all his strength leave him. His lungs were burning with each breath and he could hear nothing but the sound of his own heart. He leaned heavily on Rosalind who took his weight easily and allowed his head to rest against her shoulder. Gradually he began to breathe normally and he became aware that Rosalind was stroking his back lightly. He leaned back against the wall and looked at her.

"Alright?" She took his retreat without visible emotion and stepped away from him. Her voice was raspy.

He nodded. "You?"

"Yes." She smiled at him. It was the same smile she'd shared with him that night in his room. He made an awkward lurch toward her and she steadied him. "I think you should go back to your room. What you've just been through takes a lot out of a person." He nodded, glad that she had stopped him from what he was about to do, he didn't need to make a fool out of himself again that night. "I'll walk with you. I need to get out of this classroom."

He walked next to her in silence. The few times he'd glanced at her he'd almost lost his balance. When he turned to face her at the doorway to the dungeons he noticed how very tired she looked. "I'm sorry."

"I know." She glanced at him then and smiled again. "Now you only have one more person to apologize to." Draco looked at her sharply and she smiled. "You think I have no faith in you." She changed position so her back was to the hall. "It is you that have no faith in me."

Draco felt a red-hot blush run over his face and he smiled humorlessly. "You are the only one I have faith in now." She laughed lightly and turned away from him. "Wait." She turned and looked at him. "When will I see you again?"

"Soon." She walked down the hall and up the stairs and Draco went in to fall into bed. He didn't dream at all that night.

**Chapter Nine**

**Departures of Time and Place**

Severus looked over his class, really wishing he did not have to teach today. He hadn't slept well for months and his arm was becoming almost unbearable. He felt old, older than he was, older than he thought possible. He'd had a rather nasty run in with Rosalind the previous evening and had barely been able to control himself. The girl was diving under his skin; almost to his very blood and for the first time in his life he was unsure of what to do about it. No potion would work to free him, nor counter-curse, he could think of nothing that could help. Except Dumbledore. Severus watched as the students made their potions. He knew that Dumbledore was aware that Rosalind being here was affecting him badly. He looked at his godson who was carefully finishing his potion and felt a stab of jealousy. Draco looked up at him then and Severus was barely able to look away before betraying his thought, Draco didn't need additional complications in his life.

Draco placed his books carefully in his rucksack and waited until the class emptied out. Severus was standing with his back to the room putting away some jars and Draco walked up to him.

"Professor." Draco had never felt comfortable calling him anything else since he'd begun school.

Severus turned around too quickly and knocked over a stray jar. "Can I help you Mr. Malfoy." He turned and did a quick repairing spell and put the jar back in place.

"Is something wrong?" Draco couldn't believe he was asking him this. His godfather had never sought his council and had no reason to do so now.

Severus looked at the boy in surprise. "Nothing you can help with Draco." He answered as truthfully as he could.

They stood in silence looking at each other, each unsure what to say to the other.

"Can I ask you something?" Draco regretted the words almost as soon as they were out. To his relief Snape nodded. "What does love feel like?" Severus beetled his eyebrows at him, unsure how to respond to the question, when Draco continued. "I mean how do you know if you are in love?"

Severus walked to his desk and sat his legs unable to hold him anymore. "I don't know if I am the person to ask that question to Draco."

Draco looked confused for a moment and then he took a seat in the front of the classroom and looked at Severus. "I don't have anyone else to ask." The comment was spoken with such finality. Severus looked at the boy and realized perhaps not for the first time that Draco was no longer a boy, but a man, a man with no one to talk to.

"Well perhaps." Severus began the only way he knew how, with a question of his own. "You should tell me how you are feeling."

Draco swallowed, he wasn't sure if he wanted to expose that much of himself. He had been truthful however when he'd said there was no one else to ask. "Alright then," he paused looking down at his hands. "I don't know. Whenever I'm near this person it's as if I'm on fire but I want to be near her all the time anyway. She has a way of making me feel very..." He paused, frowning, looking for the right word. "Cared for." He glanced up at Snape and his face was flushed red to the hairline. "I saw her talking to someone else and didn't even want to hex him, I wanted to choke him. When she touches me I feel as if my skin is burning, but in a good way. I always manage to make a complete fool of myself around her, but I can't wait to see her again." Draco stopped as if out of breath and ideas at the same time.

"Well that explains Potter's visit to hospital last night." Snape mumbled very quietly under his breath and smiled carefully at Draco. "Have you spoken to this girl about how you feel?" Again another question, Severus cursed himself silently.

"No." Draco hadn't even been aware that Snape had spoken before the question. "I can't." Snape nodded slowly and Draco stumbled on. "It's just." He mumbled. "She's involved with someone else."

"With someone else?" Severus almost choked. "Draco are you telling me that you've had relations with someone who."

Draco looked shocked. "No." He spoke quickly. "I've never tried anything with her." Severus could read the disappointment clearly on his face.

"I see." Severus recollected himself. He was sure that Rosalind was whom they were discussing when Draco had mentioned the burning sensation when he was touched but he'd lost the train of the conversation when Draco had mentioned someone else, now he was back on track again. "Are you quite sure she's involved with someone else?" Draco nodded and Severus continued. "Have you asked her about it?"

Draco's face fell. "No." He studied his hands again. "I don't have to." He stood then but made no motion at leaving, he just needed to move a little. "The thing is, I can't compete with the man she loves. He's older and braver than I can ever be, but she's said things to me that make me wonder. That confuses me really." He looked up at Severus with anguish written clearly on his face. "And she has this smile that makes my knees go weak." He looked away again. "I was going to kiss her once but I didn't." He sank back onto the stool. "Which is probably for the best. I'm really no good at it anyway." Severus smothered a chuckle, remembering the million times he'd paced his rooms, agonizing over the same things.

"I thought your father was going to help you with that." Severus knew Lucius' plans on the matter.

Draco blanched, as if he could get any paler. "You knew about that?" Draco's mind raced back to Christmas of his sixteenth year. He'd walked into his room and found a very beautiful woman sitting there. His parents had just gone to some kind of adult's party and Draco had looked forward to an evening wandering around the house without worrying about what he should be doing. He should have known his father would have other plans for him. The woman had stood and smiled at him. With a strange clarity Draco knew exactly what she was there for, him. She walked towards him and Draco had backed up until his back had hit the door. She was very sexy and very experienced and very surprised when Draco didn't respond at first.

Later Draco rationalized that he was only human and the things she had done to him were things no other human would be able to withstand, but it didn't make him feel any better. The knowledge that his father had hired someone to 'break him in' was humiliating in the extreme. He supposed he should have been grateful his father didn't ask her for a report card after. Draco had never thought anything could be more humiliating than that, but the fact that his father had let Snape in on it was worse than anything he could have imagined. "What did you two think it would be a wonderful joke or something?"

"Draco." Severus hadn't thought it the best idea at the time and judging by the emotions that ran over Draco's face in the previous moments, knew that it didn't go well. "You're father thought he would be helping you. Every boy is nervous about that sort of thing." He stumbled here. He'd always thought that he would have been most appreciative if his father had done it for him but seeing Draco's face at that moment almost made him change his mind.

Draco shook his head in disgust. "Helping me." He buried his face in his hands for a moment and then looked at Snape with confusion all over his face. "It was the most humiliating experience I've ever had. How would you like to know that your father had to pay someone to take your virginity?" He looked at Snape and registered the effect his words had on him. "Maybe it was my father's last ditch effort to find something I was good at." Snape looked distinctly uncomfortable now. "Well he failed there too." He stood and picked up his books, he just reached the door when he heard Snape's voice.

"Draco." Severus stood behind the desk still. "I think you should talk to this girl, find out what her situation really is."

Draco shrugged his shoulders. "I will. If I can ever find her again."

Draco stalked the halls that night, he felt sorry for anyone or anything that got in his way tonight, including Dumbledore, Snape or Rosalind. He still felt the shame of the conversation with Snape earlier and was reliving all the shame of the Christmas visit. He should have known that his father would tell Snape, he probably told everyone else too. Draco had never even had a chance to ask the woman's name. It seemed unfair that the things he'd imagined would happen a certain way always turned out to be the exact opposite of what occurred. He'd thought he would be a leader in school but Hermoine Granger had earned that her first year and Harry Potter had outdone him in every other way. He wondered if he would ever find anything he was good at. He rounded the corner on the way to the top tower and stopped. Snape, Dumbledore, Trahern and Rosalind were all standing at the end of the hallway. Rosalind had a bag in her hand and she was smiling at Trahern sadly.

Draco crept up so he could hear them talking and wished he hadn't.

"I'll be back soon Sloane I promise." She hugged him.

Sloane held onto her like he was holding her for the last time. "Please promise me you'll be careful."

"I promise." She sighed as he released her and she kissed him quickly on the lips. She stepped away from him then and to Albus Dumbledore. "I have the package."

Dumbledore smiled at her. "Good. Once you have given it to Remus he will take you to his home. You will be safe there for a few days. No one will be able to detect you here. Remus will tell you when it is safe to move again." He touched her hair. "We will be waiting for you."

"Some of us more than others." Snape continued with a very pointed look at Rosalind. She smiled at him and he seemed to freeze. "I will contact you if anything goes amiss."

Rosalind nodded at him and stepped away from them. Dumbledore waved his wand and before Draco could think to protest she was gone.

The men looked at each other for a moment and began walking down the corridor. Draco stepped into the corridor blocking their way. He was more hurt than they could understand and more angry than they were ready for. "Why have you sent her away?" He looked at Dumbledore for an answer but didn't wait for it. "I thought you loved her." He glared at Sloane. "How can you send her into danger if you love her?" He didn't even glance at his godfather who was in shock at witnessing such an outburst of emotion from Draco. "Where has she gone?"

Dumbledore spoke then, in his kind but commanding voice. "We cannot tell you that. But we have done everything we can to ensure her safe passage there and back again." Draco opened his mouth to speak again but Dumbledore interrupted him. "She has responsibilities that you cannot fathom Draco. Sloane could not stop her, it is her destiny to help us." He paused. "As it is your destiny to love her."

Draco heard the air leave him, as if someone had landed a physical blow to his person. He looked up at Snape who was watching him with something like pity in his eyes and at Sloane who's eyes were brimming with unshed tears. "You know?"

"I do." Dumbledore continued and stepped toward the boy.

Draco backed away. "I'm not a child that needs to be tapped with a sleeping spell." He tried to gather his considerable confusion and fasten it about him like a shield. "Can you guarantee she'll be safe." Dumbledore shook his head no and Draco felt it like another blow to the head. "Will you at least tell me when she returns?"

"I will." Dumbledore agreed.

Draco wondered if he would be able to walk away without falling. He felt as if his knees were too weak for him to stand on, he willed himself to turn and walk away from them. He made it to his room without collapsing but that was as far as he went. He wondered if he'd have felt so empty if he hadn't seen her leave, hadn't seen her with Sloane, hadn't known that she'd left perhaps never to come back without saying good bye to him. He crawled to his bed and onto it. He felt as if he hadn't eaten in years, weak and suddenly so tired he couldn't imagine ever moving again. Dumbledore had told him it was his destiny to love Rosalind. For years Draco had been told that he couldn't love anyone and he'd believed it. He could never imagine what it was like to love but to love someone who was constantly putting their life in danger was worse than he could have fathomed. He curled up on his bed like a child and for the first time in his life cried himself to sleep.

When he woke the next day Draco meant to feel better but he didn't, if it was possible he felt worse. He stood and dressed for the first time not really caring what he looked like. Out of habit he looked impeccable, as long as no one looked as his eyes. They were filled with an aching sadness never seen on a Malfoy. Snape noticed it and he knew why. Draco was sitting in Potions a week later almost doubled over in pain and having a great deal of trouble concentrating when Snape leaned over his table. "Working alone again Draco?"

"Yes sir." Draco could barely speak.

Snape looked at his godson's hallowed face and dark rimmed eyes with concern. "Draco will you please stay after class? I would like to speak with you."

"Yes sir." Draco nodded and tried to get back to mixing his potion.

Draco didn't leave his table when class was dismissed. He didn't have the strength to stand and walk out of the class. He knew people were watching him wondering what was wrong but he didn't care. He knew he was losing weight and he couldn't afford to do so, but he didn't care in the least. He slept but always woke up tired. He looked up at his godfather and saw something he didn't expect, understanding.

"Draco I wanted to speak with you a little more on the subject we last discussed." He began a little uncomfortably. "I know what is wrong with you."

Draco smiled wanly at him. "I know you know that I'm in love with Rosalind Weaver."

"I know how she affects you." Snape continued doggedly, knowing that if he didn't say what he had to say it would never come out. "You asked me before if I had ever been in love." Draco looked blankly at him. "I have." Snape sat down on the bench in front of him and was almost surprised that they were of a level. "Her name was Sophia. She was a student here when I first began teaching and I taught her for two years before she graduated. Several months later she returned to live in Hogsmeade and to visit at Hogwarts. The months that she was away were akin to hell for me Draco. I felt nothing but pain, I lived for no one but her and I had since I'd first met her. She returned when I could but merely look at her and occasionally speak with her my pain lifted. One day Dumbledore took me aside and asked me to do a favor to him by bringing something to the village for her." Snape looked over Draco's head, lost in thought, he didn't even see that Draco was looking at him with something akin to wonder on his face. "When I arrived at her door. She seemed happy to see me, invited me in and made me some tea. It seems foolish but no one had ever done anything like that for me before. She was interested in what I had to say, interested in me, and I had never experienced that. I returned the next day and the interest didn't wane, in fact it seemed to increase." He brought his eyes back to Draco and smiled at him but the smile didn't extend to his eyes. "I don't know what came over me but one evening I walked down to the village, to her and confessed everything to her. I remember being surprised that she didn't turn me away, she didn't laugh or scoff at me but touched my face with such tenderness that I couldn't breathe." Snape closed his eyes then and shuddered at the thought and Draco thought back to the night on the bridge when Rosalind first touched him and he felt like he had been set alight. Snape opened his eyes again and continued. "I wooed her, meant to marry her, but one evening I went to far, said too much and I thought I had lost her forever." He laughed humorlessly and shook his head. "I was a fool and a cowardly one at that. I retreated to the safety of this castle and waited for her to come to me. She never did." He looked at Draco and swallowed hard. "She had become a target in the village, because of her relations with me and my former loyalty to the Dark Lord. She was in her house when it burned to the ground one night. No one knew how or why it had caught fire just that she didn't escape." Draco's head shot up and the look of horror on his face was mirrored by the looked of despair on Snape's. "Now the pain I felt when she left for those few months is permanent, she's gone forever and my life will never be the same. I'm telling you this because you need to understand that this type of love only happens once and if you don't seize upon it you could lose it forever."

Draco was reeling from all of the information, all the images he'd been given in the last few minutes. He looked at his godfather in an entirely new way.

Snape was completely surprised when Draco hugged him. He had never been hugged by anyone before, not since Sophia and was surprised at the warmth it gave him.

Draco hugged his godfather for as long as he dared and then stepped away from him. "I'm so sorry." He picked up his books and opened the door. He turned to face Snape again and was surprised to see him wiping at his eyes. "Thank you for telling me." He closed the door then and walked down the hallway. He felt somehow lighter now that he knew someone understood what he was going through. The ache was still there and it still drove him to distraction but he became more functional on a daily basis. Functioning to live but only just. He wondered if he would be able to feel the fact that she had returned and thought that maybe he would.

**Chapter Ten **

**Christmas wishes and New Year's kisses**

Christmas day dawned and she still hadn't returned. Draco took his time in dressing for breakfast; he heard all the commotion in the common room and was surprised to realize that so many people had stayed for the holidays. Then he remembered the New Year's Ball. He'd heard it mentioned through one of his bouts of distraction and knew that most of the students were anticipating this new 'tradition'. Dumbledore had implemented it last year as a way of distracting the students from the stress of Voldemort's return as well as a way to bring all the houses into a greater understanding. If Draco had heard and remembered correctly this year someone had come up with the brilliant idea of having a masked ball. He smiled as he looked in the mirror, he wore a constant mask, it shouldn't be hard for him to wear a fake one for a night. He walked into the Great Hall and students were everywhere talking and laughing, exchanging gifts and hugs. Draco sat at the far end of the Slytherin table, knowing full well that no one would be seeking him out to give him a gift or a hug. The ache was still present and that told him that she had not returned to him. He glanced up at Sloane Trahern, who was looking even worse than Draco felt. Snape was beginning to look a little ragged around the edges as well but Draco wasn't sure if it was the absence of Sophia or the absence of Rosalind. Draco looked at Potter and his friends laughing and opening gifts and didn't feel anything but his own emptiness.

There was a shriek as the owls arrived with the mail. Packages and letters were dropping everywhere. Draco watched as Professor Trahern received a package wrapped with a small bow and smiled ruefully, Rosalind may be returning to Hogwarts but she wasn't returning to him. Draco may love her but she loved Sloane Trahern. Draco tried to eat and almost leapt from his seat when a package crashed onto the table next to him. He approached the package like it was a snake that might bite him. He looked at the tag and saw only his name written on it. He looked at it for what seemed like hours when he heard a slight noise behind him.

"Open it." Professor Trahern stood behind him and much to Draco surprise moved to sit next to him. "It's safe."

Draco opened the package with relish. He'd always loved Christmas and had almost been glad that he had a reason to be unhappy this year because it was easier to be unhappy because the woman you loved was gone than to be unhappy because no one loved you enough to buy you a Christmas gift. He parted the silvery paper inside the box and gaped at the face looking out at him from the box. It wasn't a face really but a mask, it was so clear a silver that it reflected Draco's own face back at him and there were little black dragons at the side. He took it out of the box to look at it and noticed that underneath it was a black cape that had the clear silver lining and a high fancy collar. He stood and pulled it out of the box. He knew how he would look in it with his black dress robes and he felt an unfamiliar surge of pride. Then he realized what he would look like and sat down with a thud.

Trahern, who had been watching him as he enjoyed his gift, frowned at him as he carefully placed the cape and mask back in the box and closed the lid. "Problem Draco?"

"It's the costume of the Slytherin Prince." Draco said dully. "I know who sent it and I don't want it." As if to emphasize the point he pushed it towards Trahern.

Trahern pushed it back. "It's not a gift from your father Draco. It is a gift from someone who thought you would enjoy it, not from someone reminding you who you are." With that Trahern stood and walked back towards the head table and into the teacher's headquarters.

Draco tucked the package under his arm and walked to his room. Everyone was too busy with their own Christmas gifts to notice him leaving. He closed his door and took the lid of the gift again. He fastened the cape around his neck and the mask on his face and looked in the mirror. He looked as good as he thought he would. The darkness of the cloak made him seem to glow inside it. He heard a knock on his door and quickly folded the cloak and put it and the mask in the box and slid it under his bed. He opened the door to see Snape standing there. "Professor. Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas." Snape smiled at him. "I wanted to give this to you earlier but you were opening something much more magnificent." He held out a box out to his godson and closed the door behind him as he followed Draco into the room.

Draco opened the box and looked inside to see a pair of silver snakes that would go perfectly as decoration on his dress robes. "Thank you Professor." He looked at Snape who was smiling at him. "Apparently I am supposed to attend this ball."

"You are." Snape stood and was surprised when Draco handed him an envelope.

"Sorry it isn't more but I didn't go into Hogsmeade this year." Draco stepped away from him.

Snape tucked it into his robe. "I will open this later. I must be getting back to the Great Hall. We have to finalize the arrangements for the ball." He left without another word.

Draco pulled out the other box and put the little snakes inside and slid the package back under his bed. It had been the first year that he hadn't received a mountain of presents from his mother and his father's family but he felt like he'd been given more than he deserved this year.

Draco wasn't finished receiving gifts that year though. When he was outside watching a snowball fight begin between Weasley, Granger and Longbottom with Seamus and Dean pitching in, Harry Potter walked up to him.

"Happy Christmas Malfoy." He spoke quietly and leaned on the column next to were Draco was sitting.

Draco took Potter's lead and tried not to attract too much attention to the fact that two boys that had hated each other on sight were now on speaking terms. "Happy Christmas Potter." He muttered, almost under his breath and paused for a moment. "Sorry about what I said that night."

"Alright then." Harry didn't let him go any further. He pushed off of the column and paused for a minute before walking away. "She would never do that you know, not to you."

Draco watched as Harry walked back into the fray bundling up a handful of snow and planting it on the back of Seamus' head.

The week between Christmas and New Years seemed to drag endlessly to all of the other students at Hogwarts; to Draco it was just like every other week since Rosalind had left. Crabbe and Goyle had asked him if he was going to ask Pansy to the dance and he very politely informed them he had no idea of doing so. He felt some relief knowing that they would certainly tell Pansy and she could make other plans.

New Years Eve dawned dark and snowy and Draco to his surprise was quite happy about it. He had noticed a lightening of the weight that seemed to sit in his stomach as he went to bed the previous evening and this morning it was almost completely gone. He dressed quickly and practically ran up the stairs to the Great Hall, scanning the room for Rosalind; sure he would find her sitting next to Professor Trahern. He didn't see her though, the only thing out of the ordinary he did see was Professor Lupin, sitting between Dumbledore and Snape, eating quietly and looking better than Draco had ever seen him look. Lupin glanced up at Draco as Draco faced him and Lupin smiled slightly. Draco took this as an invitation to approach the table. He knew other students were watching him but he could think of nothing but confirmation that Rosalind was ok.

Lupin stood and smiled at the boy, no man approaching him with determination written all over his face and understood with perfect clarity how he felt. "I have something for you Mr. Malfoy." He pulled a letter out of his pocket and handed it to Draco.

"Thank you." Draco smiled at Lupin; probably the only genuine smile he'd ever given the man who'd been his professor for an entire year. He glanced at Snape rather than Dumbledore "Is she safe?"

Snape patted his mouth with a napkin and nodded. "She is."

"Thank you." Draco grinned at Snape and then looked at Dumbledore. "Thank you Professor Dumbledore."

Dumbledore nodded at him and smiled as Draco turned away from him and walked back to the table clutching his letter like it held the fate of the world within its pages, then he realized it probably did.

Draco ate quickly and slipped outside to read his letter in peace. It had begun to snow and none of the students were inclined to brave the snow this early in the morning. Draco felt his heart rate pick up as he opened the envelope and removed the single sheet.

_Draco,_

_I have returned to Hogwarts no worse for the wear. Sloane told me that you received my gift. Remus and I spent days looking for just the right thing, and I hope that you like it. I wanted to be back in time to see you open it but it wasn't safe to travel. I will not see you before the ball tonight Remus and I didn't arrive until the early hours of the morning. I just had one favor to ask you, that you save at least one dance for me. _

_Yours,_

_Rosalind_

Draco read the letter twice more and folded it and placed it in his breast pocket. He hadn't noticed Pansy Parkinson storming up the walkway towards him and her voice took him completely off guard.

"Draco Malfoy." She faced him, all anger and disappointment. "I just thought you would like to know that I'm going to the ball with Goyle since you neglected to ask me." She paused then but Draco didn't speak. "Draco you really are the most useless git I've ever encountered. Do you think I wasted six years of my life wandering around after you to be pushed aside for someone else?" Again she waited for him to speak for naught. "Draco she's engaged to Trahern. Do you really think you stand a trolls chance against Merlin to attract her attention?"

"Pansy." Draco began but she turned and stormed away. Draco watched her until she passed out of his sight and shook his head, laughing slightly.

"You should be worried." A voice startled him and he looked up to see Sloane Trahern smiling at him. "A woman scorned is a terrible thing." He stopped next to Draco and glanced at the seat next to him, Draco moved over a little in silent invitation. "You're not going to the ball with Pansy. I must say I'm surprised. All I've heard in the halls is 'Of course Draco will be taking Pansy to the ball, he's taken her to the last two dances.' Trahern smiled as Draco laughed at his impression of the girls of Hogwarts.

Draco shook his head. "It wasn't so much I wanted to go with her, I was expected to go with her, I reckon I should have gone by myself." He looked at Trahern uneasily. "This year I didn't care what was expected of me."

"Yes Rosalind has a way of doing that to a man." Trahern sighed and glanced at the man sitting next to him. "Well I'm going inside where it's warm." He stood and began to walk away.

"Professor Trahern." Draco spoke before he could stop himself. Professor Trahern turned and faced him in silent question. "Are you bringing Rosalind to the ball?"

Professor Trahern laughed shortly. "I am not. She has another escort but I gather he is dispensable as well." Trahern smiled at him and then turned to walk inside.

Draco woke up that evening and glanced at the clock. Seven thirty! He shot out of bed and into the bathroom. It was deserted and Draco knew why. All those nights wandering the halls had caught up to him after supper and he meant to only take a quick nap but he'd overslept. He ran though his absolutions but dressed carefully. He walked out of the dungeons and knew the ball had begun, he could hear the music as he jogged lightly up the stairs. He checked his hair and clothes before he walked in. The room was a cluster of people that should have looked familiar and didn't. Some of the students had opted for the half mask and some for the full but they all were dressed to the nines in full Venetian style. Draco swept the room for Rosalind but could see her anywhere. He spotted Professor Trahern dancing with the new librarian; Draco couldn't remember her name. He saw Snape standing in a corner looking quite put out. Draco made his way to him.

"Mr. Malfoy." Snape smiled thinly at him.

Draco faced the throng of people. "Professor." He paused for a moment not finding her and looked at him. "Has Rosalind arrived yet?"

"She has." Snape frowned slightly and looked over the crowd. "You might want to check the balconies."

Draco had begun pushing his way through the people when a closest balcony door opened and Professor Lupin walked in leading a woman that looked so familiar and exotic that it made Draco's ears ring. He stopped dead on the dance floor and watched her walk in. She was in all black but it wasn't quite black, it seemed to pick up all the candle light around her as well as the crimson in Lupin's dress robes. Her shoulders were bare but her arms weren't and her neck was exposed with the exception of a few tendrils trailing down out of her hair. She was wearing a silver mask like Draco's and she smiled as soon as she saw him.

Draco didn't have to wait for the inclination of her head to approach her. He stood in front of her for a full minute feeling like he'd been in the sun too long, as if his mind was still asleep.

Professor Lupin chuckled at the two of them, ignoring the little surge of jealousy. "Well this doesn't bode well, if one of you doesn't speak soon I will have to start regaling you with stories from my childhood."

"Good evening Draco." Rosalind's voice sounded a little shaky as she dropped a little curtsy.

Draco wasn't sure he could speak but felt a little nudge from Lupin and began speaking out of surprise. He hadn't even been aware that the man had moved next to him. "Good evening Rosalind."

"Bow." Lupin whispered to him and winked at Rosalind. "And tell her how nice she looks tonight."

Draco bowed deeply and scolded himself for being a fool. "You look stunning." He noticed how her neck reddened a little and it made him inordinately happy that he'd made her blush.

"Not that anyone will care but I am going to join the leagues of the aged." Lupin nudged Draco towards Rosalind and walked away with a huge smile on his face.

Draco remembered his manners and extended an arm to her, she took it and he could feel the familiar heat of her burning through her gloves and his robes almost to his bones. It was then he noticed the little silver snakes that coiled around the shoulders of her dress, with the little heads resting at the place were her arms met her torso. He surged with pride at the thought that she was wearing those to show she was with him, that she knew he would come, that she knew he would seek her out and that she would so publicly display that she was his. Yes his that was the right word and it gave him a little surge of confidence as he led her out on the dance floor.

"So you did save a dance for me?" She smiled at him as they faced each other.

He smiled back at her as he put his hand around her waist; he leaned towards her and whispered in her ear. "I've saved them all."

"Oh." She almost gasped as he took on of her hands and placed it around his neck and took the other in his.

Draco was a very good dancer and he lead very well. While most of the other couple just sort of swayed back and forth to the music, Draco led Rosalind around the dance floor as if showing her off to the entire world.

"You dance very well." Rosalind watched as he guided her around who could only be Granger and Weasley, judging by the shock of red hair.

Draco pulled her just a little closer. "I have a good partner."

They danced until the dance floor was crowded with people that had finally warmed up to dancing. Draco barely missed colliding with two separate couples when he stepped of to the side and smiled at Rosalind. "Would you like a something to drink?"

Rosalind was so out of breath all she could do was nod as he wrapped an arm around her waist and lead her to the refreshment table. He handed her a glass of steaming punch and turned with his own. Again he was in awe of her as she watched the others dancing. All of his confidence evaporated as she glanced at him and smiled. He managed to smile back, wondering what he should say to her.

"Look at Lupin." Rosalind leaned over and motioned to the dance floor with her head.

Draco watched as a very tall Professor Lupin led a very short Professor Sprout around the dance floor. As they got closer to the table he noticed that Lupin winked at them.

"Did you stay with Lupin the entire time you were gone?" He hated the jealous tone in his voice but he couldn't hide it.

Rosalind glanced at him. "Yes. Well he was there, but then again it's his house. It's really more like a boarding house with people coming in and out all the time."

They watched as Lupin led Professor Sprout over to Snape and handed her off. Snape accepted her hand as gracefully as he could manage, since it looked as if he had no intention of dancing that night. To both Draco and Rosalind's surprise Snape was quite graceful on the dance floor.

Draco had been so intent on watching both Snape's dilemma and Rosalind's face as she talked about Lupin he hadn't noticed the man till he was standing next to them.

"It's positively stifling in here." Lupin took a long drink of the punch and looked out at the dance floor. He noticed Draco watching him, eyes full of suspicion. "The balcony is heated." He nodded at one of the sets of doors and leaned closer to Draco, "And quiet." With that he filled his cup and walked back over to hold up the wall.

Rosalind put her hand on Draco's arm and leaned closer to him. "I would like to talk to you."

Draco took her hand he felt protective and jealous as their fingers intertwined and he lead her outside trying to regain some of the confidence that he'd had earlier, when he'd been so convinced she'd come here wanting to see him. He led her to the far corner of the balcony and stood looking out on the grounds for a minute.

"Draco." She spoke gently. "Are you upset that I'm friends with Remus?"

The use of Lupin's first name sent warning bells screaming though Draco's mind. "Friends?" The question came out laced with all his insecurity. He took his mask off and set it on the railing.

"Yes." She used his other hand to turn him towards her. "Remus Lupin and I are friends. He is a very kind man and I consider him a valuable friend but nothing beyond that." She tried to catch his eye. "But something else is bothering you. What is it?"

Draco pulled away from her then, pacing a couple of steps away, cursing the transparency of his feelings. "Have you put some kind of spell on me?"

"What?" She looked shocked, but he seemed to want an answer so she recovered and nodded her head. 'No, I'm do not do magic."

"You're not a witch?" Draco felt as if his world had been turned a little upside-down.

She sighed and leaned against the railing. "It's not that simple Draco."

"Explain it to me." He was getting a little angry now, she was treating him rather like a child too simple to understand anything.

She looked at him and looked around making sure they were alone, and she removed her own mask. "I am a witch, my father was a wizard. My mother however was an earth witch, not one of your kind." She leaned with her back against the railing now, looking in at the dancing throng of people, the music wafting out was more rapid than any they had danced to. "She was powerful in her own right but I always understood that most wizards didn't have much use for witches like my mother."

"Except my mother." Draco remembered what Dumbledore had told him in his office. "Your mother was the witch my mother went to wasn't she?"

Rosalind wiped her eyes. "Yes your mother consulted my mother for a protection charm, but that's really all I know."

"Except for the fact that my father killed her." Draco continued flatly. At that moment the hatred he felt for his father surpassed anything he'd felt before.

Rosalind looked at him steadily. "I knew it was him yes. I heard it happen but I was very young at the time. My mother had instructed Sloane to protect me at all costs and since that day that has been his life."

Draco reeled at the realization of what his father had done. He found himself sitting on a nearby bench without really knowing how he'd gotten there but knowing his legs couldn't hold him. He felt sorrow well up in him and before he could stop himself he felt the tears burning in his eyes. He heard Rosalind approaching him, how could she even want to be in the same room with him. He heard her sit beside him and felt her arm around him. "I'm so sorry."

"You are not responsible for your father's actions." She spoke softly, soothingly to him. "I said I was very young at the time. You were even younger. My mother knew he was coming to kill her according to Sloane and she didn't hide from him." She stroked his back with one hand and turned his face towards her with the other. "Please don't blame yourself. I could never blame you."

Draco looked at her for a moment and then without a thought he kissed her. He felt like warm liquid was being poured over his entire body. Her lips were soft as she returned his kiss. A sudden thought entered his mind, unwelcome and unbidden and he pulled away from her. "I'm sorry." He stood up and walked away from her.

She sat quietly for a few moments. "Draco." His name came out like a question and he heard the same raging insecurity that had underscored his questions about Lupin.

"We can't do this." His voice sounded angry and confused even to himself. "It wouldn't be right."

She seemed to regain control of her confidence. "Why?"

"Because you are in love with someone else." He sounded ragged, like the words were painful to say, and they were. "I would rather not know what I'm missing." He looked at her. "You see I have very little of myself left and if I give that to you I."

She stood and walked towards him, stopping in front of him. "Who am I in love with?"

"Sloane." He spat the name out. He turned away from her again. "Come on, I'll take you back inside."

She grabbed his hand and held him fast. "Draco, I don't love Sloane, at least not in the way you are speaking of." She stepped in front of him. "Sloane was in love with my mother, he wanted to marry her but instead he was harnessed with the raising of a child. A child that wasn't even his."

He moved so fast that she gasped a little as his lips met hers again. He stroked her neck and face as he kissed her and felt the silent tears that fell down her cheeks. He kissed her till he felt dizzy and then he looked at her. She smiled at him and kissed him lightly, quickly. "Happy New Year Draco." He was going to kiss her again when she pulled away from him and laughed, leading him towards the door. "I like this song."

Draco allowed himself to be led into the room and onto the dance floor. He felt a little dizzy as he pulled her close to him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled against his neck. He felt like he was going pass out and he began listening to the music.

"_I wanted you to know,_

_I love the way you laugh_

_I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away."_

She sent shivers down his spine as she played with the hair at the back of his neck.

"_Cause I'm broken_

_When I'm lonesome_

_I don't wanna feel right _

_when you're gone away"_

Suddenly Draco was aware everyone could see who he was. He'd left his mask outside.

"_The worst is over now._

_And we can breathe again._

_I wanna hold you high_

_And steal my pain away._

_There's so much left to learn _

_And no one left to fight_

_I wanna hold you high and steal your pain"_

"Everyone can see who we are." He whispered to her.

She laughed softly. "I know."

"_Cause I'm broken when I'm open_

_And I don't feel like I'm strong enough_

_Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome_

_And I don't feel right when you're gone away."_

They danced this way until the ball ended when Lupin came back to collect his 'date'.

"But sir." Draco began to protest.

Lupin held up a hand to silence him. "Mr. Malfoy. Professor Snape and I both think it a good idea if you don't see her home." He grinned at them wickedly. "We were both young once as well Mr. Malfoy."

Rosalind laughed and looked at Draco, who wasn't sure if he should be insulted or relieved. "I think it's probably best Draco. We still have a lot to discuss before things get out of hand." She kissed him lightly on the lips to soften her words.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" Draco hated the anxiety in his voice. Certainly she wouldn't tell him everything she had and let him kiss her and then disappear for weeks on end.

She smiled at him. "You will. You know where I'll be. Goodnight love."

"Goodnight." Draco watched Lupin lead her away from him. It was only then when he really noticed his surroundings. People were still milling about unwilling to say goodbye. He glanced over to an unusually noisy table and noticed Potter sitting with both the remaining Weasley's and Granger. Ignoring the chaos that was Weasley and Granger bickering around him Harry smiled at Draco and nodded his direction. Draco gave a little wave and a nod and went back to his dungeons.

**Chapter Eleven**

**Getting to know you and other interesting things**

Draco walked into the Divination Classroom the next evening and saw Rosalind lying on the floor studying the ceiling. To his dismay Firenze was also there talking softly to Rosalind about what she was looking at. Draco hesitated in the doorway watching Rosalind, she looked quite at peace and a small smile played on her face as she nodded at Firenze. Draco wasn't listening to Firenze so didn't hear him stop speaking but he almost jumped out of the doorway when Rosalind spoke without looking at him. "Draco Malfoy are you going to come in?"

It disconcerted Draco when she did that. He smiled at Firenze who also seemed to know exactly where he had been standing so silently. He stood over Rosalind, looking down at her with a slight blush; she looked quite wild at that moment. Her hair was streaming over the grass, he hadn't realized last night how long it had become in her absence, she was blushing a little too and when she reached her hand out for him to help her up he wasn't sure if his legs could hold him.

She kissed him lightly before she released his hand and smiled, "Firenze was explaining the meaning of the placement of the stars. It's quite interesting really."

"I'm sure." Draco couldn't fake happiness that they had a chaperone but he couldn't help smiling because she'd kissed him.

Firenze made a little noise that sounded like a suppressed snort. "I will leave you now." He smiled at Rosalind and gave Draco a friendly but intent look.

Draco could hear Firenze's voice in his head. 'I will always be near.' He nodded at the centaur and to his relief Firenze walked into the shadows that surrounded the room. Draco glanced at Rosalind who was looking at him with a strange smile. "What?"

"I wanted to ask you something about what you said last night." She turned and sat on the grass near his feet. Draco sat and looked at her curiously. "Why would you think I put a spell on you?"

Draco had forgotten he had said that and now very much wished he hadn't. He looked at the grass to avoid her inquiring gaze and thought of what he should say. "Do you remember the night when you fell asleep in here and I put my cloak over you?" Draco was surprised that he was telling her the truth but she nodded silently. "Well I was standing over there." He pointed to the doorway. "Watching you. I was just about to come in when Snape walked in." He blushed furiously over every inch of exposed skin. "He said something to you about releasing him." He looked up at her and she nodded again. "I thought maybe." He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the grass he was pulling up by the handful.

"You're lucky that grass regenerates itself instantly or Firenze would have your hide." She teased but he couldn't look at her. "Why would I put a spell on Snape or on you for that matter?"

Draco closed his eyes for a moment wishing he could have lied to her, told her he'd heard that earth witches always put spells on wizards to make them fall in love with them. Instead he shrugged his shoulders again and opened his eyes. "I don't know. It was just odd. First I run into you at Diagon Alley and for some reason I can't get you out of my mind. Then you show up here with Professor Trahern and I think you're in love with him but I still can't stop thinking about you. I wandered the halls looking for you" The words came out almost accusingly. "When I found you, you were so strange, so bewitching that I thought." He glanced up at her again. She wasn't smiling but her eyes were dancing with something Draco didn't recognize.

"That you thought I put a spell on you." She finished for him. "That's pretty logical. So you thought I put a spell on you in Diagon Alley then?"

Draco spoke before he could think. "No." He regretted the words as soon as they were out. If she hadn't put the spell on him in Diagon Alley that wouldn't explain why he couldn't stop thinking of her.

"Ok." She smiled then. "Well to answer your question again, no, I did not put any type of spell on you. I do not practice magic."  
"Then what was that thing you did you Potter and me that night?" Draco blurted out; silently wishing he could control his tongue for once in his life.

She looked at him in silence for a long minute. "That wasn't magic. That was an unfortunate gift I was born with." She looked at her hands. "I have long been able to see what's going to happen for others and Sloane found someone to teach me how to channel it to other people so they could see it for themselves, but is not magic in the sense that you mean."

"If your father was a wizard then why don't you practice magic?" A horrible thought ran through his head. "You aren't a Squib are you?"

She laughed out loud then. "No I am not a Squib. I can perform magic I just don't practice it."

"Did you ever go to a school like Hogwarts?" He watched her run her fingers through her hair and had to tuck his hands under his crossed legs so he didn't reach out and do the same.

Rosalind nodded no. "I stayed with Sloane. He didn't want me out of his sight most of the time. It was only when I began to be sent on errands that I realized how much he hated for me to be away from him." She looked over Draco's shoulder as if seeing something he couldn't. "He never recovered after my mother was killed. He lost all of his family in the war, except me." She looked back at him and Draco felt the familiar warmth filling him again. "So tell me why do you hate Harry Potter?"

Draco felt as if cold water had been splashed over him. Insecurity raged through him. Potter was the only one that could make him question everything. He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Potter was the one who hated me first. I offered him my friendship the first day I saw him and he refused me." She continued to look at him and he felt the truth began to spill out of him. "Potter is just so good." Draco stood up now pacing back and forth in front of her. "He does everything well, he has real friends, not just ones that follow you around because they're too stupid to do anything else." Draco stopped pacing and looked down at her. "He is the reason my father hates me."

Rosalind didn't move or even breathe as the weight of what Draco had said settled over him. Then much to Draco's surprise he was kissing Rosalind. He didn't remember kneeling to be on a level with her or even having the impulse to kiss her all he knew is that she loved him. He could feel it when she wrapped her arms around him, in how she didn't resist when he pushed her backward onto the grass and leaned against her. He kissed her till he couldn't breathe, till he couldn't remember his own name, until she pushed him away seeming to know without being told that he was losing control. He sat up not looking at her and was aware of tears running down his face now. He tried to wipe them away before she could see them but sitting next to him hugging him awkwardly.

"Draco your father isn't capable of the love you should give a child." She spoke softly trying to soothe him. "He lost that ability long before you were born. Nothing you could have done would have changed that." She kissed his neck. "You have to know that, Draco. You can't make someone love you, either they don't or they do."

He looked at her then his face so close his breath rustled her bangs. "Do you?" He swallowed hard, it seemed unfair that so much should hinge on one question, but he asked it anyway. "Love me I mean?"

"Yes." She answered firmly and quickly and he believed her. "I always have."

Draco kissed her again and then he stood and helped her up and walked her back to the teacher's rooms. As he walked down to the dungeon, for the first time in as long as he could remember he felt happy and loved.

Draco sailed through the first week of class, Rosalind refused to stay out with him after nine on his school days but he tried to see her every night and usually succeeded although she had begun allowing Firenze to teach her how to read the stars. Draco would do his homework and prepare for his exams while Rosalind looked up at the sky in the Divination Room but at least they were together. She still smiled when he kissed her and it still made him dizzy. The Saturday after class began however Rosalind was not in the Divination Room.

"Firenze. Have you seen Rosalind?" Draco watched as the centaur looked at the stars and hoped he would answer soon.

The blonde head turned towards him and his face was unreadable. "She has been sent on an errand."

Draco didn't even think to ask what errand, he knew what she was doing, she was leaving. He tore through the corridors ignoring the looks of the students heading to their common rooms after dinner. He found his way to the tower corridor and saw a familiar gathering of people.

Trahern stood with his back against the wall, looking at the others like a man under attack. "I don't fancy this idea Headmaster. She'll be too vulnerable on her own."

"They will be looking for Remus." Dumbledore shook his head and looked at Rosalind who was standing between all the men with a resolute expression. "I can't risk Severus being found out and you." He looked at Sloane. "Are in no shape to help her. I know the toll the last run in with the Death Eaters had on you and you haven't been the same."

Draco stepped into the hallway. "I'll go." He walked up to the men and Rosalind with something between panic and determination written clearly on his face. "I'll go and protect her."  
"You cannot." Severus had been worried that this day would come, that Draco would openly stand against everything his father had raised him believing. The price exacted on him would be harsh indeed if Lucius found out. "You are too noticeable. Too many people know you."

Draco took Rosalind's hand and she looked worriedly at him. "Know my father you mean. I doubt seriously that any of them really know me." He spoke far more confidently than he felt. He had no idea what he was volunteering for but he would face anything to make sure Rosalind was safe.

"I'm sorry but you may not go." Albus Dumbledore smiled at the young man who stood before him looking so terrified and brave at the same time. "Severus is right, Rosalind must go in stealth and it is easier to be silent and unobserved if you are one than if you are two." He smiled sadly at Rosalind. "You must go alone."

Rosalind released Draco's hand and stepped forward to hug Sloane. Sloane whispered something in her ear as he hugged her so tightly that Draco was afraid she would suffocate. She hugged Remus Lupin who was obviously unaccustomed to physical contact but looked slightly pleased at being hugged. Dumbledore smiled at her and Snape watched worriedly, looking from her to Draco. When she finally turned to Draco he was ready to grab her and drag her away from here. Everything about this meeting seemed so final and when he hugged her he understood what it was like to never want to let go of someone. She smiled at him and kissed him quickly and with a wave of Dumbledore's wand she was gone.

Draco looked at the spot where she had stood seconds before as if it itself had betrayed him. He looked at the other men around him and frowned. "Will you tell me if anything happens to her?" He felt a little angry having to beg other people about the welfare of the woman he loved.

"Of course." Lupin put his arm around the young man's shoulder and smiled. "She will be fine. We will inform you as soon as she returns." He began to lead Draco down the hallway. The other men followed each in their own time.

Draco sat on his bed with a thousand questions running though his head. Tomorrow, he resolved, he would get some answers.

Snape had tried not to look at Draco throughout class although it was obvious the boy was trying to catch his eye. He was not surprised and not terribly pleased when Draco lingered after class. He stood behind his desk preparing himself for what his godson had to say to him. He knew that if Draco heard the entire conversation the night before he now knew some things he shouldn't.

"Where did you send her?" Draco didn't mince words as the last student filed out.

Snape had expected a question but somehow not this one. "What?" He recollected himself. Maybe Draco hadn't heard the conversation or at least not as much of it as he'd feared. "I can't tell you that Draco."

"Why does she have to go?" Draco continued, hammering the older man with all of the questions he'd thought of through his sleepless night.

Severus frowned and sat behind the desk. "She must because no one knows she's alive."

"Like my father." Draco made a guess there but figured it was worth a try.

Snape allowed a slight look of surprise to shadow his features before regaining control of his thoughts. There was no way Draco could know about the past, no one had ever told him and if all went well, no one ever would. "Among others."

Draco smiled a little, he knew that it cost Snape dearly to give anything away to him but he wasn't quite finished. "You're working against Voldemort aren't you?"

"Yes." Snape answered firmly and unrepentant. Obviously Draco had heard everything.

Draco continued. "And against my father."  
"Yes." Snape nodded this time to add decision to his answer.

Draco nodded back. "For how long?"

"Since Rosalind's birth." Snape answered without looking at Draco this time.

This was not the answer that Draco had expected. He had grown up thinking that his godfather was a loyal follower of Lord Voldemort and knew that he had the dark mark burned into his arm just as his father did. "Do you still have it?"

"It never fades." Snape measured his answer and lifted up his sleeve to expose his right forearm where the Dark Mark seemed to glow off his skin.

Draco frowned as he looked at it. "Does it hurt?"

"Constantly." Snape almost liked giving short answers, it made him feel as if he was in control of the situation, even when he knew he wasn't.

Draco sat behind the desk and contemplated the man he'd known his entire life but felt like he was just beginning to see clearly. "How can Rosalind release you?"

Snape looked as if he'd been hit. He sank behind his desk and looked at the man he had underestimated for so long. "I hoped she could but there are more important things to be dealt with at the present time." He looked at Draco who knew that he had not answered the question and continued. "Do you recall the woman I told you about, Sophia?"

Draco nodded and Snape continued. "Her death almost shattered me." His voice wasn't quite steady. "There is only one person in the world that can help with that kind of pain." Draco looked up at him. "A trained earth witch can give you something to help you forget the past, or at least the painful bits." Snape drew himself up to his full sitting height so Draco couldn't tell he was only telling half the truth. "But Rosalind is not a properly trained Earth Witch and cannot help."

"Are you sure?"

Snape smiled at the boy and his confidence in the woman that he loved. "Yes. Whatever training she received from Sloane and since he is not an earth witch but a wizard he could not teach her. However naturally gifted she may be."

"You will tell me when she returns?" He asked it as a question but if he'd had his way it would have been a command.

Snape nodded an affirmative and Draco walked out of the classroom.

It surprised Draco that Rosalind being gone didn't destroy him completely. Even now that he was confident that she loved him and knew in his heart that she would return to him he still felt empty and numb. The only time he felt anything was when he was thinking about Rosalind and even then the loneliness that overcame him was almost too much to bear. How did Snape handle it all these years? How would he, Draco, handle it if something ever happened to Rosalind? He glanced up at Sloane and noticed the hollow look on his face. He now understood Sloane Trahern's obsession with keeping Rosalind safe having lost the only person he loved.

"Are you actually friends with that weird old man?" Zambini sat next to him and was followed by Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy who arranged themselves around him.

Draco frowned at his old 'friends'. "I wouldn't call it friends exactly we just understand one another.'

"Especially after you kissed his girlfriend on the balcony at the ball." Crabbe sniggered.

Draco saw the brief look of pain that crossed Crabbe's face and knew that someone had kicked him. That was good because then he wouldn't have to do it himself. "Rosalind is not his girlfriend, she's mine." He challenged them to contradict him.

"Well you wouldn't be the only one who's stolen her away now would you?" Pansy smiled nastily at him.

Draco returned the favor. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Let's just say that not everything is how it seems." She stood. "Or should I say not everyone." She smiled at him again and began to walk away, she threw a "See you in DA Draco." Over her shoulder. The boys all followed her mumbling good bye to Draco as they shuffled out of the room.

Draco stared after them in confusion for a moment and then realized that Potter was looking at him. His face was suspicious and he didn't hold Draco's gaze for long. Draco knew instantly that something was wrong, It had only been a week since he'd spoken to Snape in his classroom and they had promised that they would tell him if anything went wrong. He dropped his fork and glanced at the head table. He wanted to go up there and demand that someone tell him what the hell was going on. Instead he stormed out of the Great Hall knocking his bench over in his anger. He went in search of Pansy and the boys, he may not have any power over them anymore but they had no idea how far he would go to find out what was going on. He walked into the Slytherin common room only to find it empty, a fire roared in the still cold room, something caught Draco's attention and he turned to see his father's face looking at him out of a green flame.

"Draco." His father's voice was not friendly but he smiled just the same. "My foolish son."

Draco looked at the man he'd once loved and now hated. "I don't care what you have to say. I won't let you hurt me anymore."

"Oh how you underestimate me dear boy." Lucius laughed darkly. "I think it's fair to say I still have a little power over your feelings." He paused. "As well as your heart."

Draco felt dread wash over him but he held his smile in place. "Doubtful, very doubtful."

"Who do you think sent the woman to you Draco?" He smiled as his son's face turned ashen. "Rosalind is an accomplished seducer isn't she? She manages to convey a certain amount of sincerity and it's odd that so many people don't see her for the simple whore that she is."

Draco felt as if he was going to be sick, his father was lying, he had to be. "Shut up." He yelled so loudly that he thought the windows in the room would break. "You're a liar."

"Now, now Draco. Let's not be any more dramatic than we must." Lucius' imperious tone was clear even through the crackling of the flames. "We will be coming for you soon, my little pet and I." He disappeared.

Draco turned and ran for the bathroom. He was sure he was going to be sick but he wasn't. He looked at himself in the mirror and could feel a little cold hardness begin somewhere near his heart; it began to spread over his entire body until he felt like a human block of ice. He walked to his DADA class and took his place next to Crabbe for the first time in months. Crabbe seemed surprised to see him and he wasn't the only one. Across the aisle Potter cast a glance at him.

"What Potter?" He spat at the other boy. "Am I obstructing your view?" He motioned at Crabbe who turned a furious shade of red. Potter just ignored him and turned back to his book.

Sloane Trahern noticed the change in him as well and so did Professor Lupin who joined the class later as an observer. Lupin watched Draco as one would watch a chained Dragon whose temper was uncertain. Draco wasn't quite his old self but he was trying. They were trying quite complicated disarming charms when Lupin approached him.

"May I have a word outside?" The older man suggested.

Draco thought about saying no but though better of it. He followed the man outside and down the hallway to another classroom; Lupin closed the door and faced Draco. "What is going on Draco?"

"I would ask you the same question." Lupin looked a little surprised but didn't speak and Draco used the opportunity. "Where's Rosalind?"

Lupin's face turned a sort of mottled gray and he ran his hand through his hair. "We aren't sure. Dumbledore lost contact with her last night."

"She's with my father." Draco tried not to feel anything when he said the words and it almost worked.

Lupin stepped away from him for a moment. "That's not possible. Who told you that?"

"My father paid me a visit this morning in my common room." Seeing Lupin's face go from disbelief to panic Draco laughed humorlessly. "He's not in the castle, he visited through the fireplace. He said that he'd sent Rosalind to me and that she seduced me under his orders." Something that Lupin had said registered at last. "Why isn't it possible?"

Lupin grabbed him by the arm. "Because that would be so bad that the entire world would have heard about it by now." Draco didn't fight him as Lupin dragged him out the door and the hall to Dumbledore's office. The Headmaster looked more worried than Draco had ever seen him. Lupin almost threw Draco down in a chair but hesitated just enough to set him down gently. "Lucius contacted Draco."

Dumbledore looked at Draco who's much to his own surprise began talking. "My father told me that he had Rosalind with him. That she's been under his power all along. That he sent her to." The little box that Draco had managed to shove all his feelings into began to split. "That she." This last word cracked on his lips and when he looked up at Dumbledore with eyes that reflected hurt like a mirror.

"That she never loved you." Dumbledore finished and Draco nodded silently. "Trust me when I tell you she has never loved anyone else." Dumbledore looked at Lupin. "We must send out people, contact Tonks and have her organize a search. She must be hiding in the muggle world, begin there." Lupin walked out of the room without another word and Dumbledore looked at Draco again. "She's very accomplished at hiding Draco, which is why we sent her. Now you go back to your classes and I will call for you if anything occurs."

Draco staying in his seat. "I will help find her."

"It's not safe Draco." Dumbledore began.

Draco felt anger replace his sadness. "If it's safe enough for her to out there then it's safe enough for me."  
"You don't understand." Dumbledore looked at the young man and decided to tell him the truth. "If your father knows she's moving then it's not safe out there for her either."

**Chapter 12**

**I see who you are**

Within twelve hours Draco had formulated a plan, he knew that Dumbledore meant well but he had to do something. He began to seek out the company of his old 'friends' and they accepted him back with little effort. He ate lunches with them, sat in classes with them and sat around the common room talking about what they would do once school was over. Draco sat and listened to all of them in turn, or at least pretended he was listening. He wanted to hear anything that he could about his father and the other death eaters. The only one who wasn't convinced of his loyalty was Pansy. She still watched him very carefully and never revealed much in front of him. Draco played her little game, decided that if he found out that she was the one who had told his father about Rosalind he would make her more miserable than she ever imagined she could be.

"What about you Draco?" Zambini looked at him and Draco smiled. "Are you going to work for the Ministry like your father?"

Draco nodded. "If everything goes according to plan." He smiled and shrugged. "I'm really just trying to get through the next few weeks. It's not as if I have to decide right away. My grandmother Malfoy settled an inheritance on me when I graduate so it's not as if I have to work."  
Snape walked into the room then and the group stopped talking. "Malfoy. Could you come with me please?"

Draco made a face at the group and followed Snape out of the room. They walked to the Potions classroom and Snape closed the door, locked it and put a silencing spell on it.

"What are you doing?" Snape looked at him with something like fear on his face.

Draco shrugged his shoulders. "Trying to find out what they know." Snape made a strangled sound. "Don't worry its not as if I'm asking them questions, I just listen and hope something comes up."

"You understand that one of them betrayed both you and Rosalind to your father." Snape couldn't understand how he couldn't appreciate the danger here.

Draco nodded. "I do."

The door swung open and Dumbledore stood in the doorway. "She's returning." He glanced at Draco. "We'll need your help now. We have to find her before someone else does."

Both men followed Dumbledore up the stairs to the Great Hall. Assembled within were Remus Lupin, Sloane Trahern, Professor McGonagall, Hagrid, and Madame Hooch and to Draco's surprise Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and both the Ron and Ginny Weasely.

"We will spread out all over the castle grounds." Dumbledore began and Hagrid and Madam Hooch made their way outside. "If you find her take her directly to the hospital wing."

Draco barely heard anything else. He was running out the door, he passed the Divination classroom and saw Firenze who gave him a little wave. He raced up the stairs, he knew somehow where she was going to be.

When he turned the corner into the farthest hallway he saw her, steadying herself on the wall. She must have heard him because she turned towards him.

"Bloody Hell." He gasped as he saw the blood dripping from a vicious slash across her collarbone, she looked paler than he'd ever seen her and a brilliant bruise was beginning to color her eye. She used her free hand to clutch at her stomach and she began to wobble.

Draco began running as she began to fall. By the time he reached her he could hear her shallow breathing. He scooped her up with a strength he didn't know he had and began down the stairs. Her hair dangled over his shoulder as he tried to keep her head up. He wasn't sure what set of stairs he'd gotten to when he saw Potter and Lupin walking towards him. Lupin took the stairs two at a time and took her out of his hands. Draco felt his knees give a little when she left his arms and he swayed a little.

"Alright there Draco?" Potter frowned at him, unsure of what he should do.

Draco nodded and began following Lupin down the stairs. The very few times he stumbled he found Potter's arm steadying him. He looked at the other boy gratefully and Potter smiled weakly at him.

By the time they arrived at the hospital wing everyone else had assembled there. Lupin rushed past Madam Pomphrey and laid her on a bed.

Professor McGonagall shooed the men around a tall cloth screen as she, Hermione and Madam Pomphrey began to remove her robes. He glanced at Harry who was standing watching with an unreadable look and smiled hopefully. Harry gave Draco a wary smile but nonetheless it seemed to make him feel better.

The screen was finally removed and Draco saw that she was now in a simple short sleeved nightgown, at least he assumed it was a nightgown because she was covered from the waist down. Mc Gonagall was moving her wand slowly over the young woman's body, Draco tried to read her expression for any hints as to what was wrong with her but none could be read.

"Well." Professor McGonagall stood and looked at the crowd assembled. "She has ingested something poisonous but Madam Pomphrey believes she has given her the correct antidote. She had been hit by several very powerful hexes and I think we all know why they didn't affect her.' She glanced at Draco who had slumped into a chair in relief. "She also seems to have a very nasty flu and is running quite a high temperature, so I suggest that all the students go back to their dorms and Madam Pomphrey and I will look after her."

Draco watched as Ron and Hermione walked out of the room hand in hand. Harry hesitated briefly and looked at Draco. "Coming Draco."

"In a minute." Draco was looking at Rosalind's arms. It dawned on him that he'd never seen her arms bare before. He ran a finger down one arm.

"Draco." Snape began.

Draco ran his finger below her elbow. "It's like she's on fire." He placed his hand around her forearm and frowned. "What the?" He turned her arm so he could see it. Blazing in the middle of her right forearm was one of the fiercest Dark Marks Draco had ever seen. Draco dropped her arm as if were indeed on fire. He stood up and looked from her to the rest of the group, only Harry and Ginny had the same horrified expression he felt on his own face.

"Draco." Snape continued but Draco was already almost running out the door.

Draco broke into a full run when he reached the hallway and ran until he reached his room. He locked the door, ignoring the questions from the group in the common room and began throwing what could only be described as a huge temper tantrum. Obscenities as well as solid objects flew around the room. When it ended the only things in tact were his bed and dresser. Shoes, clothes and the remains of a wooden chair littered the floor. Draco sat in the middle of it all leaning against his bed with his head in his hands totally exhausted. Everything his father had said was true; she was one of them. The mark wasn't a new one; it had scarred as only that particular mark can. The thought of everything he'd told her, everything he'd believed and the memory of the vivid scar on her skin finally succeeded in making him ill. After he was done ridding his body of everything in it, he lay on his bed, wishing he could just disappear.

It was dark when Draco woke and he was aching with hunger and unaccustomed excertion. He struggled off his bed and managed not to scream when he stepped on a sharp splinter that was once the leg to his chair. He found his slippers among the mess in his room and walked up the stairs to raid the kitchen. It was fifteen minutes later when Draco realized he hadn't gone to the kitchen but to the hospital wing. He walked in and was surprised to see it empty except for the bed with the woman he thought he'd known so well in it. He sat next to her bed and looked at her. Whatever sleeping draft she'd been given was working wonderfully, Draco could hardly tell if she was breathing. He took her arm in his hands and ran his fingers over the Mark. She shivered in her sleep and Draco made a small sound of disgust as he put her hand down on the bed.

"You must think I'm some kind of fool." Draco spoke bitterly to the woman who could not hear him. "I believed everything you said to me, every lie, every kiss and every declaration." He stood a paced around the bed. "I should have known that you were too good to be true, that you could never understand who I really am. It was brilliant you know how you always knew just what to say to me. Knew just how to comfort me." He collapsed down into the chair for the second time that day. He put both his hands on the edge of the bed and rested his head against them. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at her, when a hand touched his head he leapt up so quickly that he knocked the chair over. "Don't touch me." He tried to mean what he said. He righted the chair so he didn't have to look at her.

She frowned and tried to speak, she swallowed and tried again, her voice was raspy and dry. "What is it?"

Draco handed her the glass of water that was sitting on her bed table. "I know about you."

She drank deeply and looked at him again. "What about me?"

"I know about your little alliance with my father and his twisted friends." He continued standing, afraid to sit because then all her would have to do is reach out a hand and touch her.

She looked confused. "Draco I have no alliance with your father. Why would you." She followed his gaze to her forearm where the Mark was glowing almost red now and she understood. "Draco I can explain."

"Always ready with a lie." Draco stepped further away from the bed. The expression on her face made him want to forget that she'd betrayed him and climb into bed with her, holding her till they both fell asleep. He closed his eyes for a moment. "I know that you've been with my father for the last two weeks. You may have the others fooled but I am not so much of a fool as you believe."

She yawned mightily and Draco felt slightly insulted. He was getting ready with another tirade when she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep. He stood for full minute waiting for her to wake up so he could continue accusing her.

"She won't wake." A voice out of the darkness made Draco turn wand drawn. Remus Lupin stepped out of the darkness at the edge of the room. "The sleeping spell I just put on her should last till she's well."

Draco wasn't alarmed at the sudden appearance of Remus but that didn't mean he wanted to talk to him either. "Listen Professor Lupin I really don't want to talk to anyone about this now."  
"Forgive me Mr. Malfoy but I really don't give a damm what you want." He was frowning at Draco and the tone he took reminded Draco that he was in fact a teacher. "Sit down, I want to tell you a story." Draco began to protest. "Sit."

Draco sat in the chair and Lupin dropped down onto the foot of Rosalind's bed closest to Draco.

"There once was a young witch who was so afraid of the match that her family had made for her she followed her very persuasive cousin to visit a seer for a spell of protection." Lupin began.

Draco huffed. "I've already heard all this nonsense."

"You'll hear it again and then I'll tell you more." Lupin almost growled at the young man and Draco remembered that this teacher was also a werewolf. Draco resettled himself in his chair. "Where was I. Oh yes. We shall call the witch Sissa because that is what everyone else called her then and we will call the seer Giovanna Weaver, since that is her name. The cousin was a one Sirius Black." He trailed off a little with a smile as if remembering something. "Anyway" He shook himself and smiled at Draco. "Giovanna Weaver had made a deal with Sirius Black that she would put the most powerful protection spell on Sissa that she could conjure. A good idea in theory but not in practice. The spell Giovanna conjured was quite powerful indeed and it not only protected Sissa but also connected her yet unthought of child to another person for protection. Giovanna had just given birth to an infant who promised to be quite powerful in her own right and Giovanna linked any children of Sissa to her own child. No one knew why she did this, she never explained. The common belief is that she knew that her own daughter, Rosalind" He gestured at the sleeping woman. "Would grow to be one of the most powerful women this time would ever know and that she would need someone who was her equal to help and guide her. This was not how it turned out however, Giovanna had no idea how truly evil Sissa's husband would become and how much he would poison and damage his own child." He nodded his head at Draco. "Giovanna was killed before she realized what kind of life Sissa's child would have and how weak he would become because of it. So instead of you sharing in Rosalind sorrows she felt yours." He watched as the truth of what he said registered on Draco's face. "Every time the protection spell was enacted Rosalind endured what you endured." Draco blanched but Remus continued. "Except once. One time the protection spell wrapped itself so completely around you that she was the only one who suffered." Remus turned her arm so the Mark was visible. "If you examine it very carefully you'll see that Voldemort didn't quite line the ring up correctly the second time."

Draco looked at her arm and saw the telltale double edge of two marks over one another and looked at Lupin. "The day that Voldemort tried to give me the Mark."

"She was the one that received them." Remus looked at the sleeping woman with something like pity in his eyes. "As well a the mild shot of the Cruicous curse."

Draco's face fell, he could remember hearing screaming when Voldemort had applied the ring to his arm for the second time and the curse, and he wondered what it would have felt like if he'd gotten it full blast. "Why didn't anyone tell me about this?"

"What good would it have done?" Another voice spoke from the doorway and both men looked to find Severus Snape looking at them. He walked into the room and placing a chair on the other side of the bed looked at the two already sitting. "Once your father found out about the spell, which was shortly after you were born, he went to his own seer and asked her what she knew of the spell. She told him about Rosalind and that he was destined to lose you to her."

Draco looked confused and even Lupin didn't seem to be following what he was saying.

"Rosalind's power was going to be so great that she would draw you away from everything your father had taught you and turn you against him." Snape explained slowly as if to two exceptionally slow students. "Once he found out he set out to find Giovanna Weaver with a vengeance. One can only assume that once she realized that Lucius was seeking her out she told Sloane everything so he could pass it on to Rosalind just in case."

Lupin nodded. "Rosalind has always known who you were. On some level you have always been connected. Dumbledore, the old romantic that he is encouraged the fact that you were destined to know one another. Of course when the spell was cast there was no way to know if Sissa's child would be a girl or a boy so that part is all nonsense but Rosalind insisted that everyone who knew anything about you tell her anything they could. In her mind you have always been the man in her life, the one she was waiting for."

"The one who just called her a liar." Draco looked at her and then at both men. "How can she still love me?"

Snape smiled at the woman. "She loves you because of who you are to her. She knows you Draco, probably better than you know yourself. She was connected to you by the strongest bond known before you were born."

"So she loves me because she has to." Draco continued.

Lupin laughed shortly. "She loves you because she wants to. Trust me I've know her and Sloane since she was a child and no one can make her do anything she doesn't want to. She loves you because she knows the man you will be."

"You've known her since she was young as well?" Draco looked at Snape.

Snape looked at the sleeping girl and nodded. "Yes. It's all a very strange story but it's late." He looked at Lupin who shrugged his shoulders and Draco who showed no signs of moving. "Very well. As you've been told your father wanted Giovanna Weaver dead, but he wasn't the first to look for her. The first man he sent was Sloane Trahern, who wanted to be a death eater but needed your father to present him to Lord Voldemort. Your father saw his opportunity and made Sloane swear that he would find Giovanna and kill her and then as payment your father would make sure he became a death eater. Only when Sloane did not return did he realize that he'd been betrayed."

"One can assume that Sloane fell in love with Giovanna Weaver the moment he saw her." Lupin continued and Snape looked relieved at the break from explanation. "Because he turned on Voldemort and your father as soon as he came in contact with her." He paused with a smile. "You father had no way of knowing that exposure to a Weaver woman will do that to you." Draco frowned and looked from Rosalind's sleeping form to Lupin again. "You see Draco, the Weaver women may not be witches in the common sense of the word but their magic is even more powerful than most. Something in them speaks to the good in all of us and in so doing makes it stronger until it is all we have left. That is the powerful hold she has on everyone she comes across and it's even stronger if she cares for you at all."

Snape spoke softly. "Sloane didn't have a chance." He smiled sadly. "None of us do."

He looked at Draco and Draco understood all that his godfather had not told him that day in the classroom. That this woman could call to the goodness inside Snape and make him want to be a better man, make him question everything he'd believed in and everything he believed about himself. Draco looked at Lupin and knew it was the same way for him.

"What Severus is trying to say is that Rosalind affects people profoundly just as her mother did." Remus stood and looked at her with a fond smile. "Rosalind is the first person in a long time that has made me believe that I'm not a monster. She sees the good in everyone and that becomes what they see in themselves. Giovanna made Sloane turn against his entire family to protect and love her, to raise another man's child."  
Draco wondered something that had never occurred to him before. "Does anyone know who Rosalind's real father is?"

"We do." Snape answered shortly. "But that is another story for another night. Right now I think you should go to bed."

Draco walked out of the room leaving the two men with their own personal demons and the woman who could release them alone. He went to the dungeons and climbed into his bed more at ease than he'd been all day.

**Chapter 13**

**It all comes crashing down**

Draco walked into the Great Hall and heard groans coming from all reaches of the room. Today was the first Quiddich game of the New Year and it was a miserable day. 'Cold and blustery' Draco thought, 'just as it ought to be at the beginning of March in Scotland. Quiddich was not a game for sissies and in Draco's opinion that meant that if you couldn't handle the rain and cold you ought not to play. The reason for Draco's chipper mood beside his love for cold weather in general was the fact that Rosalind would be going to the match today. He had not been able to speak with her since their horrible argument, Lupin, Snape and Trahern wouldn't allow it, but they all assured Draco they had explained what had happened and she understood. Draco whistled as he ate his breakfast, ignoring the looks around him. He was walking down to the Quiddich pitch when he was joined unexpectedly by Potter, both Weasleys, both Longbottom's and Granger. Granger and the Weasleys didn't seem overly pleased at the prospect of walking with Draco so publicly but Potter seemed determined.

"Is Rosalind going to be here today?" Potter began once he'd fallen into step with Draco.

Draco nodded. "Yes. Have you spoken to her?" He wasn't sure he wanted the answer to that question.

"Yes." Potter nodded seriously. "I spoke with her last night. She seems much better. Funny that of all the things she had wrong with her the flu was the thing that kept her down the longest."

Draco wasn't aware of that fact and it made him slightly angry that Potter did. "Yes. What did she say to you last night?"

"She's excited about the match today. She quite excited about watching you play." Harry smiled to himself and looked out of the corner of his eye to see Draco blushing furiously. He wasn't surprised when Draco bent to tie his shoe and looked perfectly normal when he stood. "She also worried. She thinks something is about to happen." He stepped a little closer to Draco so he could whisper. "She'd not the only one. Remus is very edgy and have you noticed how jumpy Trahern's been lately?"

Draco frowned at the thought. "If my father comes after her he will have to go through me."  
"I think it's something else." Harry continued. "I'm not sure what but something."

It was a certain amount of foreboding that Draco mounted his broom and lifted off, waiting for Madam Hooch to blow the whistle. He kept glancing through the stands, looking for anything unusual, but seeing nothing. Trahern was there but Lupin wasn't and neither was Rosalind. It wasn't until just after the whistle blew that he first saw her taking her seat between Dumbledore and Lupin. After that Draco tried to concentrate on the golden snitch. He was very glad he wasn't facing Harry Potter today because he was having a hard time doing so. It had begun to rain and visibility was dwindling, he could see the players racing around the pitch, passing the quaffle and dodging bludgers but only just. Then he saw it, the snitch and raced down to catch it, the Ravenclaw seeker on his tail. The snitch streaked upward and Draco followed at breakneck speed, he cursed the thing for moving so fast and the Ravenclaw seeker for successfully anticipating the move. Draco thought he'd lost all hope of the snitch when it seemed to freeze in midair and Draco almost ran into it.

"Draco Malfoy's caught the snitch. One hundred fifty points to Slytherin." The youngest Creavey's voice cracked over the loudspeaker through the noise of the rain. Draco almost didn't hear the muffled. "What the bloody hell?"

Something caught Draco's eye and he saw something unfamiliar in the air with him. The Dark Mark glowed ominously on the clouds and Draco dove for the ground, and Rosalind.

When he hit the ground he saw hooded figures coming from the forest and he ran for the stands. He'd almost reached it when he heard a crack and the teachers stands began to give way. He knew he wasn't the only student quick enough to pull out his wand and yell 'arresto momentum' when the stands hit the ground with a soft thud instead of a crash and the teachers walked out for the most part unharmed. He was looking frantically for Rosalind when he saw a familiar figure walking across the pitch. His father, he tried to give chase but was held up by several first year students running for the castle as instructed. That was when he first saw Rosalind standing back to back with Trahern watching as the Death Eaters Draco had not seen began to land and join in the melee. He was too slow to react when a curse from one of the forest borne Death Eaters rocketed towards Rosalind. She barely paid it any heed as it fell at her feet. Draco ran for her and was only sidetracked by the sight of Neville Longbottom facing off with Bella Lestrange. Draco began shooting curses at the Death Eaters that were trying to interfere but he couldn't bring himself to use any of the unforgivable curses. Longbottom was not so inhibited and when Lestrange was reeling from falling over one of the Death Eaters that Draco had disabled with a full body bind when Draco heard him yell "Crucio."

Lestrange screamed in pain. Her wand flew from her hands as she curled up on herself. Draco knew very well how she felt but had little time to sympathize if sympathize he would have done because he was busy protecting himself and a very determined Neville Longbottom.

"Avada Kedavra." Draco spun around to see who cast the death spell and saw Lupin standing next to Longbottom; they were both staring at a very still Lestrange. Neville looked a bit stunned as he turned away and joined the fray again. Draco wheeled around to see a Death Eater take aim at Lupin and was just quick enough to disarm him with an 'Expelleamus'. Lupin nodded his thanks and ran. Draco had barely noticed that several other people that hadn't been at the match had suddenly appeared in the fight. He recognized some people from the Ministry of Magic including a large black wizard who seemed to be taking the Death Eaters down two at a time. As well as all of the Weasley's who all looked so much alike in the rain all you could do was distinguish the hair.

Out of nowhere a house elf appeared next to Draco and to his surprise joined the fight. There were creatures of all types appearing now for both sides and the pitch was littered with people that Draco couldn't bring himself to look at. He saw a familiar looking figure and followed began to chase it in the rain. He stopped when he saw Rosalind and Sloane. Sloane saw who was approaching him but was caught in what looked like a half body bind and could do little to stop it.

"You can't outrun me forever traitor." Lucius Malfoy's voice was clear even through the rain and his mask. Draco watched in horror as he raised his wand.

A scream pierced the air as the green light shot from Malfoy's wand and Draco realized that his father was flying backwards several yards across the quiddich pitch not of his own accord. It had not been enough however because Draco watched as Sloane fell. Draco began running as Rosalind began to scream.

"Rosalind." Draco hauled her off the ground and shook her none too gently. "Rosalind you have to leave. He'll be back and he'll kill you."

Rosalind looked at Draco and he felt a wave of rage mingled with sorrow flow over him, he barely kept his feet as she closed her eyes and shook him off.

Draco watched as she began walking towards his father. His father had recovered from whatever curse Trahern had thrown at him at the end and had removed his hood as he stalked towards the girl. It was only then when Draco realized she had no wand and began to run after her. In a motion that Draco almost didn't catch Rosalind threw her hand out and he watched his father sail backwards yet again. It happened twice before Draco realized what she was doing, she was the one that was sending his father flying with a wave of her hand and she was trying to separate him from the rest of the Death Eaters. Draco felt no remorse as he watched his father hit the ground only to get up and be flung back again. Once they were sufficiently removed from the rest of the fighting she waited as he got up and looked at her.

"How many times do I have to kill you?" His father's breathing was ragged and Draco knew that he must have been hurting from his many collisions with the ground.

Rosalind looked at him and for a second Draco was afraid of her. "Only once but you can't even manage to do that can you Malfoy."

"Crucio." Malfoy shot at her and she cringed a little but stayed upright. Lucius looked stunned for a moment and repeated the curse. This time the curse seemed to have a little more effect on her. She doubled over for a moment. "Girl you underestimate me." Draco recognized the tone of his father's voice; it was the tone he took on before he was going to destroy you. "Did you think you could turn my son against me? Against Lord Voldemort?"

Draco began to move towards them. "Father." He wasn't sure what he was going to do but he had to something.

"Petrificus totalus." Lucius shot the curse at his son. "I will deal with you later Draco."

"What you did to my mother had nothing to do with Voldemort." Rosalind's voice was coming out in little gasps now as she stood to face Draco's father.

"No, that was entirely to do with you." Lucius watched her as he would a bug that he was about to kill. Something behind Draco caught his eye. "My Lord Voldemort."

Rosalind turned to face the figure that Draco could not see with very little emotion in her face. Draco wished he could call for help or at least physically move her but he couldn't.

"Malfoy." The man spoke quietly but his voice sounded venomous. "You can't possibly think I will allow you to try and kill my child again. Do you?"

Malfoy looked as if he'd been smacked very hard but he had no time to react before a green light hit him and he fell to the ground lifeless. Voldemort walked towards Rosalind talking the entire time. Draco didn't understand why Rosalind didn't run from the Dark Lord. "My child." Voldemort repeated. "How much you resemble your mother. You have her power as well I see. We will be unstoppable together you and I. You can rule at my side like a queen." His voice took on an oddly soft tone. "I have been looking for you all these long years. I knew you couldn't be dead. I knew that I was meant to find you that we were meant to rule together."

Draco felt his father's curse began to lift. It seemed an eternity before he'd reached a sitting position; Voldemort had stopped circling Rosalind and had stopped in front of her. She still hadn't moved or spoken. Draco wondered if she was under some sort of spell. It was only then that Draco realized that he was suddenly not alone. Lupin, Snape and Dumbledore were all running up to them wands drawn.

Voldemort had removed his hood and looked at all of them. "You thought you could hide her from me forever." He looked at Dumbledore with something like amusement. "You should have known I would find her. Her power draws me to her." He touched the young woman's chin and she seemed to start. Voldemort's face-hardened as she stepped away from him. "You have poisoned her against me." He raised his wand at Lupin.

"No!" Rosalind yelled at him and stepped in between Lupin and her father. "I will go with you if you leave now."

Voldemort smiled humorlessly at her. "Oh but my dear I have unfinished business here."

Draco noticed someone out of the corner of his eye, it was Potter, and he was walking very quietly towards Lord Voldemort. He could give Lord Voldemort Harry to save Rosalind, the thought raced through his head and out again, to his surprise he didn't think he could have done it. Instead he stood and with a look at Harry he ran towards Rosalind. He stepped in between her and her father. "You will not take her."

Voldemort laughed and it was an ugly sound. "Who are you to stop me?" He raised his wand at Draco.

"Crucio." Harry's curse hit Voldemort full in the back and the Dark Lord doubled over in pain for a moment. Before Draco could stop her Rosalind stepped around him and with a silent nod at Harry flung her father backward into the air before he could regain his footing and turn on Harry." Avada Kedavra." Harry shouted and the curse hit Voldemort with a light that lit up the sky with its power. The shock of the curse sent Harry sailing back several feet and Rosalind sailed backward as well but managed to take out Draco and several Death Eaters along the way.

**Chapter 14**

**The Dark Lord's daughter and other secrets**

The light stung his eyes as he tried to open them but he tried anyway. He was in the hospital ward at Hogwarts and he could hear people talking all around him. He listened for Rosalind's voice but couldn't hear it. He shifted in his bed slightly and Snape appeared in his range of vision. "Good afternoon." He sat down and looked cautiously at the young man. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore." Draco experimented with his limbs and found that they all worked but were a little stiff. "Where's Rosalind?"

Severus looked at the boy. "She is at St Mungo's. The double curse has its own dangers however it's was the only way to be rid of Lord Voldemort. The curse had to fulfill the prophecy as well as being incredibly powerful. Rosalind was the only one who had the kind of power that was needed. The power of blood."

"How long did you know that she was Voldemort's daughter?" Draco grimaced as he said it.

Severus paused for a moment. "Since she was five. Dumbledore received a letter explaining who she was and what should be done with her. It was clear since before she was born that her power would be incredible."

"How did it happen?" Draco asked the obvious question and Severus smiled at him. "I mean I know how it happened but did Voldemort love her mother?"

Severus laughed shortly. "No, Voldemort couldn't love anyone. When he met Giovanna he was still Tom Riddle but he never loved her. He didn't love Rosalind. He only wanted her because he knew how powerful she was, that's why she could never use her power, he could feel it. If he had found her before she was ours all would have been lost. Her presence would have empowered him."

"So you all have been keeping her from everyone for all this time." Draco felt sleep begin to take him again and knew he was being hit with a sleeping spell. He glanced at Lupin who was standing next to a bed of a woman Draco didn't recognize.

Snape smiled at him. "We were keeping her safe." The last thing Draco saw before he fell asleep was Snape looking at Lupin with a smile.

Draco barely managed through his last few months of school. Rosalind, Harry and several others were still in St Mungo's recovering from injures they received in the war. Some students would never return and to Draco's surprise Neville Longbottom befriended him with a vengeance. Neville invited Draco to sit with him at meals and during class. Draco found he didn't mind him so much. He helped Neville in his potions class and slowly allowed him to become his friend. Granger and the Weasley's had taken to being a little nicer to Draco but Draco knew it would be a long while before they ever called each other anything like friend. All of Draco's old 'friends' began to fade into the woodwork. Pansy's family had sent for her shortly after the battle, Goyle had been hit by a spell that made it impossible for him to speak again and had been sent home but Crabbe had been so badly injured he would be spending the rest of his life in St Mungo's ward for the mental insane. Draco realized he didn't care anymore who had turned on him and Rosalind, he was just glad they were gone. Dumbledore had gone to the extreme of making all the houses one for the rest of the school year, allowing all the students to mingle without reservation and to everyone's surprise, except Dumbledore's of course, they did.

Two weeks before graduation Draco walked into Professor Snape's class to again ask him how Rosalind was and received the shock of his life. His mother was there speaking to Snape. Draco faltered at the doorway, his mother looked different. The facts of the last several months raced through his head and he was unsure what to do.

Snape sensed his hesitation and stepped forward to give him the news he requested. "Rosalind will be coming home next week. You will be able to visit her tomorrow." He paused as Draco absorbed the news. "Your mother has come to take you."

Draco eyed his mother warily as she faced him and smiled weakly. "Alright then." He glanced at his godfather again. "Thank you." He turned and walked out of the classroom, but made it no farther than the wall just beyond the door.

"It was a mistake for me to come." Narcissa's voice sounded strangled for a moment. "He can never trust me again Severus."

Snape's voice sounded closer than before and Draco knew that he had moved over to comfort his mother. "Sissa. It may take some time but he will forgive you."

"How could he?" Narcissa's voice was muffled through tears. "I allowed Lucius to treat him like a dog Severus. I just couldn't bring myself to stand against him."  
Snape made a strange humming noise. "If you tell him he will understand."

Draco moved around the doorway and into the room quickly before he could lose his nerve. "Tell me what?" He looked at his mother with a combination of hurt and hope. "What could possibly explain your complete betrayal?"

"Draco." Snape's voice warning as Narcissa Malfoy stepped out of his arms and faced her son.

She put a hand up to silence him. "He's right Severus. I was horrible." She looked at him. "I'm so sorry Draco for everything." She paused and began to cry.

Draco was moved by the apology and the tears but made no move to comfort his mother.

"Draco." Snape began and this time it was he who cut Narcissa off with a look as she began to protest. "When you were born your mother loved you more than anything else on earth. She doted on you and your father became jealous. His only consolation was that you were his pureblood son and he was going to groom you to be the next Dark Lord." He looked back at Narcissa who had fallen into a chair and buried her face in her arms. "When he found out about the protection spell that all changed and he blamed your mother for it." He stood next to her and anger seemed to seep from every pore. "You may think the only one he wanted dead was Giovanna Weaver but you'd be wrong. He almost killed your mother that day. She was in St Mungo's for several months and by the time the Silencing Spell he'd put on her so she wouldn't tell anyone wore off she was to afraid of him to tell anyone." Draco felt a little lightheaded. "He would visit her there everyday and tell her if she ever betrayed him again that he would kill her and her son." Snape frowned at the memory and the anger seemed to grow momentarily. "You came to live with my mother and I during that time. Lucius wanted nothing to do with an infant that he would have to care for. I took you to see your mother and believe me when I tell you that you were the reason she survived her ordeal."

Narcissa turned and faced her son then. "I asked one of the nurses to put a spell on me before I left." Her voice was shaky and Severus put a hand on her shoulder, she smiled sadly up at him. "Severus was the only one who knew. I asked them to find me someone who would." She choked off a sob and regained control of herself. "Someone who would put a sort of Imperious curse on me. Severus tried to talk me out of it, he thought it was too dangerous, he even offered to give us shelter until another way could be found but I insisted." She looked up at Severus who looked at Draco. "I only had two choices, become completely obedient to your father or lose you."

"So you became obedient." The force of her words slammed into Draco like a fist to the head.

His mother began to dissolve again and Severus caught her, lowering her to the bench. "Now that your father is dead." He seemed to wince a little at the statement but recovered quickly. "Your mother is released from the curse."

"I." Draco began and then faltered. He couldn't process this right now; everything else was still too fresh, too stressful. "I have to go." He turned and fled out of the dungeons. He wasn't sure where he was going till he found himself outside under the tree by the lake. He collapsed against the tree and began to sob. He felt someone come up next to him and sit. He didn't raise his head to look at them or even stop his uncontrolled sobbing. Who ever it was allowed him to cry himself out in silence. When Draco looked up he was surprised to see Neville Longbottom sitting cross-legged on the ground looking out at the lake.

Neville felt Draco's eyes on him and turned to the other boy with something like a smile. "Want to talk about it?"

"No." Draco spat the words out and buried his head again. He thought Neville would leave but he didn't, he just sat and looked at the lake. The silence stretched between them and to his very great surprise Draco started talking. "I just found out that my mother loves me."

Neville looked at him for a moment and nodded. "Good."

"It's confusing. She's never really acted like it." Draco continued. "She just sat there and let my father do whatever he wanted to me." Neville looked at him again but didn't ask any questions. "I've just found out that she allowed herself to be put under and obedience spell so he wouldn't kill me." Draco looked at the lake and the setting sun. "How could she do that?"

Neville pondered the thought for a while and then shrugged. "People do the most extreme things when they love someone." He looked at Draco. "Would you do it to protect Rosalind?"

"I would do anything to protect Rosalind." Draco spoke confidently and realized if given the option to lose Rosalind or endure anything else, he would endure anything else.

They sat in silence and watched the sun set over the lake.

Draco stood in line at his graduation and looked into the crowd. He saw his mother, Rosalind and Severus Snape all standing together. They were looking for him and he felt a surge of pride to see that Rosalind was wearing his old cape with the coiled snakes at the shoulders. His mother had put on his old Quidditch jersey and Severus looked at both of them with a laugh. Draco looked over the student and a few of them caught his eye and more waved. The past week had been as close to perfect as Draco had ever experienced. His mother and Rosalind had become fast friends, and Draco's mother was able to tell Rosalind things about her mother only another woman would notice. Severus Snape had begun to change since the day in the classroom when he'd told Draco everything. He had never wanted to disclose that information but he seemed lighter somehow having done so. What was more was that Narcissa seemed to make Severus happy, he smiled when she laughed and more than one person had commented to Draco how he seemed to hang on her every word. The very best thing was that Rosalind was back and except for a little limp she was back to normal. She had agreed to marry Draco the night before his graduation and he imagined that was what his mother and she were discussing at that very moment. What was more, he was finally graduating and he now he couldn't wait for his real life to begin.

The end.


End file.
